Chicken Vegetable Kamameshi

Chicken Vegetable Kamameshi

Kamameshi, or kettle rice, is rice prepared in a cast iron kettle and cooked over an open flame. In restaurants it is often prepared tableside using a chafing dish. I make this rice with chicken, plenty of veggies, dashi, soy, mirin, and of course white rice. If you don’t have a chafing dish, it can be prepared over the stove in a ceramic bowl using a heat diffuser.

Kamameshi, or kettle rice, is rice prepared in a cast iron kettle and cooked over an open flame. In restaurants it is often prepared tableside using a chafing dish. I make this rice with chicken, plenty of veggies, dashi, soy, mirin, and of course white rice. Once in a while we like to break out our kamameshi set and prepare this delicious and authentic Japanese meal. The sets are readily available – I have links to a couple at the bottom of this page.

Kamameshi can be prepared as plain white rice or with all sorts of ingredients. I mixed in some nice mountain vegetables… carrot, gobō (burdock root), enoki mushrooms, takenoko (bamboo shoots), and kogomi (fiddlehead ferns). You can also use seafood or other types of meat. Other ways to prepare it include meatless using green peas, gobo, or mushrooms.

When preparing this dish, be sure to enjoy the okoge, which is the rice at the bottom of the kettle that burns during preparation. It comes our crispy and usually full of flavor as the liquid soaks into the kamameshi at the bottom of the kettle.

You can buy a kamameshi set and cook this yummy rice right at your own table. If you don’t have a chafing dish, it can be prepared over the stove in a ceramic bowl using a heat diffuser.

Chicken Vegetable Kamameshi

Kamameshi (釜飯), or kettle rice, is cooked in a cast iron kettle over an open flame. Be careful – the kettle will get very hot while cooking and some of the rice may burn on the sides. This burned rice is called okoge and is considered a delicacy- make sure to enjoy it with the meal. One cup of rice serves 2, but is served as an entree, each person can get their own small kettle.

For liquid you can use water, but I prefer a mix of dashi, soy sauce and mirin. For kamameshi, a ratio of 1.25:1 liquid to rice is optimal, but for moister rice you could go up to 1.5:1.

See the tips in the notes section below for some additional advice on preparing kamameshi.

PREP	COOKING	YIELD
10 mins	25 mins	Serves 2

PREP	10 mins
COOKING	25 mins
YIELD	Serves 2

Ingredients:

1 cup uncooked short grain white rice
1 cup dashi
2 TBSP Soy Sauce
2 TBSP mirin
1/4 cup diced chicken thigh meat
1/4 cup assorted vegetables sliced julienne style (I used carrot, burdock root, enoki mushrooms, fiddlehead fern and bamboo)

Instructions:

Rinse the uncooked rice in a colander and then soak in water for 20-30 minutes.

Put the rice into a small iron kettle. Add dashi, soy sauce, mirin, chicken and vegetables to the kettle.

Cook covered in the kettle over an open flame for 25 minutes until water is absorbed and rice begins to burn on the bottom – extinguish after 25 minutes.

Serve out of the kettle.

Notes:

Be sure to keep the kamameshi covered for the full 25 minutes or until you are sure that all the liquid is absorbed. You can buy fuel pellets that burn out after 20-25 minutes, or use Sterno or methanol fuel which may burn for hours – so you will have to extinguish it yourself
Be careful not to use too much liquid. The ratio of water to rice should be 1.25 – 1.5 to 1.
The liquid may boil out and fall down the outside of the kettle. Most kettles have a lip to catch it, but if not it will usually boil off on the side of the kettle or can be easily cleaned up later.
You can a special rice spoon, known as a shamoji, to serve the rice and scrape the sides of the kettle. A metal spoon will also work as long as you are using a non-coated cast iron kettle.
You can refrigerate leftover kamameshi and heat it back up later. I recommend heating it up in the microwave to retain the original flavor.