Kyonpe's Corner
"Milk porridge with croutons"
Kyonpe
November 5, 2001
When getting a bit hungry as the autumn nights grow longer, and feeling like eating something hot, I sometimes boil rice in milk to make gruel. Most of the time I put either a piece of butter or thinly sliced ham with thin stripes of parsley into it. Sometimes I also sprinkle bubu-arare, very small rice crackers.
I usually eat this milk porridge with salt, but once in a while it's also good to make it sweet by adding a piece of black sugar. However that was not very popular with my children.
But then I made croutons by mixing equal amounts of butter and sesame oil and garnished the porridge, they asked for seconds!
As I tried making it
Though it's a porridge, it's certainly a convenient dish. And here is an instant recipe for making use of cold rice.
Boil milk in a pan, add washed rice and heat it up, and then sprinkle a bit of salt at the end. There is no need to add a bouillon cube to flavor the milk because the croutons will supplement that missing taste. The fact is that the child's taste is honest and not to be made light of.
It cannot be called an instant meal if you have to take the trouble to fry the croutons in oil. Instead, itÕd be much easier if you mix sesame oil and melted butter (using a microwave), dress dices of bread with it, place them in an oven toaster, and then bake them as you keep an eye on them.
Plate: by Hideaki Yamamoto
From ÒShiki no AjiÓ (January 1995)
Translated by Maiko Noda
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