Rice dishes
Hiruzen Okowa
Hiruzen okowa — five-ingredient sticky rice from the Hiruzen highlands
Glutinous rice steamed with chicken, chestnut, burdock, red beans, and seasonal mountain greens, a hearty five-ingredient okowa from the Hiruzen highlands of Maniwa — said to be a fixture at rice-planting celebrations and local festivals.
- Origin: Okayama Maniwa
- About 540 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Glutinous rice steamed with barley is loaded with chicken, chestnuts, burdock, carrot, konjac, azuki beans, and wild greens gathered around the Hiruzen highlands through the seasons. The rice steams up plump and chewy, and each mouthful turns up a different combination of sweetness and savoriness from the mix — a festive, generous dish central to Hiruzen celebrations.
How it's made
Chicken, dried shiitake, and fried tofu are sautéed, then simmered further with water and mirin before being seasoned with sugar and soy sauce and separated from their broth. The rice, barley, and other ingredients are steamed together, with the reserved broth ladled in partway through instead of plain water. It's plated and finished with a scattering of green beans.
Why it took this shape
It's said to trace back to a nearby dish called Daisen okowa, born when sushi toppings were mistakenly mixed into red rice and, rather than waste it, someone steamed it anyway — turning out a delicious rice dish. Locals reportedly refined the recipe through the 1950s using ingredients from around Hiruzen, and it settled into its place at festivals and celebrations as a signature Hiruzen dish.
Before you go
- How to use a convenience storeA quick guide to choosing rice balls and hot snacks, buying coffee, paying by cash, IC card, or tap payment, using the eat-in corner, and sorting your trash — the basics for a first visit.
- Station food and ekiben (station bento)Where and when to find ekiben (station bento) before it sells out, etiquette for eating on board, how standing soba and udon stalls work, and where to find souvenirs sold inside the station.
- Soraben and airport diningA guide to what soraben means and how it differs from ekiben, whether to buy before or after security, etiquette for eating on board, airport restaurants, and things to check before buying food souvenirs to take home.
Dishes in the same style
- Aburafu DonDeep-fried wheat gluten, shaped into a log, is simmered in a sweet-savory broth and set with egg over rice, katsudon-style — a Tome City bowl said to trace to a tofu shop's shelf-stable gluten product, later turned into a bowl dish by a local innkeeper.
- Aburi-zushiNigiri with just its surface flash-seared by torch or hot iron. Unlike Edomae's shigoto curing for keeping, the searing here is done purely for the change in aroma and fat it brings — a relatively recent way of eating sushi.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Okayama
- Ami to Daikon no NitsukeTiny Setouchi shrimp called ami, richest in early autumn, are simmered with daikon in soy sauce and sugar — a pairing said to have grown from the two coming into season together, with a salted version kept for winter when rough seas kept boats ashore.
- Bachi JiruThe offcut ends of hand-stretched somen, called bachi for their resemblance to a shamisen pick, are simmered with daikon, carrot, and fried tofu in Asakuchi's Kamogata — said to hold a firmer bite than the somen strands themselves.
- Buri ZoniIn southern Okayama, New Year's zoni is built around yellowtail, a fish that changes name as it grows and so is read as auspicious, simmered with spinach, daikon, and other root vegetables — a dish passed down through the generations for the New Year's table.
- Chiya GyuJapanese Black raised in Niimi, Okayama, tracing to one of the oldest documented "tsuru-ushi" pedigree lines from the Edo period — said to benefit from the clear Takahashi river and fertile soil.
- Demi KatsudonA freshly fried pork cutlet is doused in hot demi-glace sauce over rice, a bowl said to have been devised by the founder of an old Okayama City restaurant after being won over by Western-style cooking at a Tokyo hotel — toppings vary shop to shop.
- FunameshiCrucian carp caught in the waterways of the reclaimed Kojima Bay farmland, at their least fishy in the cold season, are minced by hand and simmered with root vegetables, the rich broth then ladled over hot rice — also known as tonto-ko-jiru for the sound of the knife against the board.