Rice dishes
Miyazaki Torimeshi
Miyazaki torimeshi — rice cooked with chicken, burdock, and carrot, a farmhand's field meal
Thinly sliced chicken, burdock, carrot, and shiitake are stir-fried and simmered in dashi, then cooked into the rice — a Miyazaki farmhand's meal once carried into the fields as rice balls during harvest, known in Shintomi town by another name, Kasuga-zushi.
- Origin: Miyazaki Shintomi
- About 860 km southwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
Torimeshi is rice cooked with chicken, carrot, burdock, and shiitake, eaten widely across Miyazaki. It's said to have started as a farmer's meal, shaped into rice balls by family members and eaten during breaks from rice harvesting or fieldwork. The chicken's flavor soaks into every grain of rice, and the aroma of the other ingredients rounds out the dish.
How it's made
Thinly sliced chicken is stir-fried in a pot, then dashi and shaved carrot, burdock, and shredded shiitake are added and seasoned so the flavor soaks through everything. This mixture is combined with washed rice and cooked together. At festivals and gatherings where many people come together, it's sometimes cooked in a large pot and served to everyone.
Why it took this shape
Across Kyushu, and especially in Miyazaki, where chicken is eaten often, torimeshi is said to have become an everyday favorite. Families are said to have shaped it into rice balls and eaten them along a paddy's edge or beside a field during breaks from harvesting or farm work, a familiar sight across the region. It's also often served at celebrations, and the way seasoning and ingredients vary by area and household is said to be part of why it has stayed beloved for so long.
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 Miyazaki
- Futatabi DangoDumpling flour is kneaded, steamed with freshly picked mugwort folded in, then pounded a second time — a Nobeoka treat named for that unusual second working of the dough, wrapped around sweet bean paste and dusted with soybean flour into a soft, pale-green dumpling.
- Hie-zushiWild boar bones are simmered into a broth, then rice, millet, and vegetables are added and cooked down into a porridge — a Shiiba village dish built on millet, a grain said to have been eaten in Japan since before rice farming; whenever a boar was dressed, the porridge it made was shared around the whole village to see out the long winter.
- Hyuga Kurokawa Kabocha no NimonoHyuga kurokawa kabocha, a black-skinned heirloom pumpkin first grown in Miyazaki City, is cut into large chunks and simmered slowly in sugar and light soy sauce — lighter and less sweet than a Western pumpkin, but it holds its shape well and its skin is good to eat too.
- Iriko MochiGlutinous rice is parched and ground into iriko flour, then kneaded with starch syrup, rested, and cut into bars — a Miyazaki sweet said to have arrived from the Satsuma domain as a festival treat, once handed out to neighbors to wish for a child's healthy growth.
- Jidori no Miso KorobakashiJidori chicken is rolled around a dry pan with no added water, coaxed with a miso glaze without letting it catch — a home-cooked dish from around Kobayashi City, its name a western-Miyazaki dialect word for tumbling food in a pot as it cooks, the mix of vegetables and seasoning varying from house to house.