We love eating this easy salmon rice for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Pair it with miso soup and you have a wonderful meal. It’s a great way to use up leftover Bonito-Cured Lox or extra Shiozake, and it works well with fresh salmon, too. Some people remove the skin, but we enjoy how soft it gets once it’s cooked, and mix it right into the rice. To top it off, we add heaps of ikura, which is salmon roe. The more you put on, the more decadent the dish gets. Ikura also happens to be our kids’ favorite food. They just love how the salty little eggs pop in their mouths.
Salmon with Ikura Rice
Ingredients
- 2-1/4 cups (3 rice-cooker cups) Japanese white rice, washed and drained
- 2-1/2 cups water (if cooking on the stovetop)
- 1 teaspoon dashi powder or 2-inch square of kombu
- 6 ounces salted salmon, or fresh salmon seasoned with 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup ikura (salmon roe)
- Soy sauce, for drizzling
- 2 scallions, thinly sliced
- 1 sheet nori (optional), torn into small pieces or shredded
Instructions
If cooking the rice on the stovetop:
- Put the washed rice into a heavy-duty medium pot with a tight-fitting lid, such as Staub or Le Creuset. Add the 2-1/2 cups water. Sprinkle in the dashi powder (or add the kombu). Lay the salmon, skin-side up, on top of the rice and cover with the lid. Bring to a boil over high heat, 6 to 9 minutes. Do not open the lid—instead, to check if it’s boiling, look for steam and listen for bubbling sounds. Immediately reduce the heat to low and cook for exactly 10 minutes. Remove from the heat. Let sit, covered, for 10 minutes.
If cooking the rice in a rice cooker:
- Place the washed rice in the bowl of a rice cooker. Add enough water to reach the 3-cup line for white rice. Sprinkle in the dashi powder or lay in the kombu. Lay the salmon, skin-side up, on the rice, and cook on the white rice setting.
- When the rice is finished cooking, carefully open the lid. Dip a rice paddle in water to prevent the grains from sticking to it. Fluff the rice and flake apart the salmon by scooping down to the bottom and gently folding up a few times. Some steam will be released and the rice will become more aerated. Remove the kombu, if that’s what you used.
- Scoop the rice into four or six bowls, depending on how many people you are serving. Top with the ikura, drizzle with soy sauce, and sprinkle with the scallions and torn nori.
Notes
Reprinted with permission from Love Japan: Recipes from our Japanese American Kitchen by Sawako Okochi and Aaron Israel; with Gabriella Gershenson, copyright © 2023. Photographs copyright © 2023 by Yuki Sugiura. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House.