Rice dishes
Kuri Gohan
Kuri gohan — rice cooked with sweet Tanba chestnuts and a touch of salt
Large, sweet Tanba chestnuts are cooked into rice with a touch of salt for an autumn dish. Because the chestnuts spoil quickly once fallen, cooking them right away is said to matter — a way to savor a Tanba specialty said to have been offered to Heian-era nobles.
- Origin: Kyoto
- About 420 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
This autumn dish cooks rice, lightly salted, together with the large, sweet chestnuts known as Tanba kuri. The chestnut's mealy sweetness is said to stand out all the more against the salt, and each mouthful is said to carry autumn's fragrance. Because chestnuts lose their flavor quickly once they fall, this dish is said to be a treat reserved strictly for the season. Tanba kuri isn't a single variety but a name for chestnuts grown broadly across the Tanba region, it's said.
How it's made
Rice, salt, and chestnuts with their hard and inner skins removed go into the rice cooker together. About a teaspoon of salt per cup of rice is the rough guide, it's said. Some households add glutinous rice for a mochi-rice style version. Peeled chestnuts are soaked in water right away and the water changed until it runs clear, a step said to matter a great deal for how the finished dish turns out, and beyond rice, the chestnuts are said to have long been enjoyed boiled, grilled, or candied in syrup as well.
Why it took this shape
The Tanba region sits in a basin ringed by mountains, with wide temperature swings between day and night, and its rivers running through fertile soil are said to nurture chestnuts with real sweetness. Its history runs deep enough to be named in the Engishiki, and during the Edo period the chestnuts were reportedly prized as tribute to the shogunate and the imperial court. Cooking rice with chestnuts right after harvest, while their flavor is at its peak, is thought to be how this dish came to be — a way of catching a fast-fading ingredient at its best.
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 Kyoto
- Chirimen SanshoChirimen-jako simmered sweet-salty with fresh sansho peppercorns in sake, soy sauce, and mirin — a Kyoto side dish said to have begun as a cook's gift in the mid-Showa era. The peppercorns leave a sharp, fragrant aftertaste.
- Ebiimo to Bodara no TaitanEbi-imo, a striped Kyoto heirloom taro named for its shrimp-like ridges, simmers together with bodara, cod dried in Hokkaido. Gelatin from the dried cod is said to keep the taro from falling apart, while the taro's bitterness softens the cod — a textbook 'deaimon' pairing.
- Fushimi no SakeSake from Fushimi in Kyoto, a district fed by groundwater from the Momoyama plateau. Its water is said to be softer than Nada's, giving a round mouthfeel and gentle, full sweetness that overlaps with the profile recognized under the GI Kyoto geographical indication.
- GanmodokiTofu mixed with vegetables, rolled into balls, and fried. Known in Kyoto as hirousu or hiryōzu, thought to have taken this form through the vegetarian temple-cooking idea of a filling dish made without meat.
- Hamo no YakimonoPike conger, riddled with fine bones, is scored with the skilled honekiri cut and then grilled — teriyaki-glazed or salted — in Kyoto cuisine. Said to have taken root in landlocked Kyoto because the hardy fish could be carried in alive, it is also a festival food for Gion Matsuri, nicknamed the 'hamo festival.'
- Kamonasu DengakuKamonasu, a round Kyoto heirloom eggplant over 10cm across sometimes called the 'queen of eggplants,' is sliced and pan-fried in plenty of oil, then topped with a sweet miso reduced with sake and mirin. It is said to have long been grown on the alluvial fan of Kamigamo.