I've been eating a lot of rice bowls lately and I thought I'd share some basics that I've learned since eating them.

I’ve been eating a lot of rice bowls lately and I thought I’d share some basics that I’ve learned since eating them.

I started with some of the donburi style Japanese rice bowls. Oyakodon is lovely, simple chicken vs egg with dashi, sugar and soy, likely ginger and garlic. Gyudon is thin sliced beef with something similar.

Korean rice bowls (Bibimbap) are a bit more relaxed and have more variety of toppings. Usually steamed veg with soy, likely ginger and garlic, plus a protein component.

What they don’t really talk about is how they make these dishes at home, practicalities. Nobody makes all these different toppings for a single bowl of rice, so from what I understand, the toppings are prepped mostly in advance, then maybe some on the day of eating.

The meal above took me about ten minutes to prep as most of it was already made. Fortunately , I’ve got quite a lot of produce coming out of the garden at the moment, so I’m eating lots of fresh food. So we have something like a poke bowl:

• Cucumber salad (soy, vinegar, garlic, ginger dressing)
• Chinese cabbage (steamed, dressed with fish sauce - no soy, Japanese spice blend, ginger, garlic)
• Chicken (deboned thigh marinated in soy, ginger, garlic, air fried for ten minutes, skin side up)
• Tomatoes (chopped)
• Garnished with Dried tomatoes, spring onion, parsley, coriander (leaf and fresh seeds)
• Sauce (tonkatsu - Japanese BBQ, soy and chili oil remnants)

All I did was reheat the rice, chicken and cabbage, chop a few bits and top the bowl. Next time, if I’m short of something, I’ll find what’s in the fridge and make enough for some more bowls.

You get the picture: rice (I use short grain), protein (chicken, tinned fish, pork, beef, tofu), veg (steamed, fermented - kimchi is great here), garnish (spring onions are non-negotiable), sauce. Marinated medium boiled eggs in soy would also work.

It looks lovely as it is, but I like to mix it all up so there are no nasty surprise mouthfuls of chili.

Happy eating folks!