Cook the local flavors once more

Niku mosso

From: A great camphor tree and a garden in the sky: island life in the Seto Inland Sea

Two niku mosso on a wooden plate

A beef version of mossou-meshi, a traditional dish of Mitoyo. Rice pressed out of a wooden mold is called mossou-meshi (literally "measured rice"), and its origin is said to be a Buddhist monks' meal that fit a whole meal into one bowl. In Mitoyo it has been served at the Momote festival, which prays for a good harvest and wards off misfortune, and as a working meal when the whole village turned out for jobs like clearing the river or raising a roof. In Toyonaka, the host family would make it after the Kojin festival for everyone to share. The ingredients are simmered sweet and salty and mixed into the rice along with their broth. This time I wrapped it loosely in plastic instead of pressing it in a mold.

Ingredients

Cooked rice
Beef
Burdock root
Carrot
Tofu
Dried shiitake (and their soaking liquid)
Sugar
Sake
Soy sauce
Green beans

How I made it

Soak the dried shiitake in water and chop the carrot
Fry the beef, add burdock, carrot and tofu, and simmer in the shiitake liquid
Season with sugar, sake and soy sauce
Mix the ingredients and broth into cooked rice
Lay green beans on plastic wrap, add the rice and wrap it loosely

Sources: maff.go.jp

This moment in the journey

Not pressed, but loosely wrapped

Niku mosso isn't squeezed tight like a rice ball. I laid green beans on a sheet of plastic wrap, spooned the mixed rice on top, and wrapped it loosely to shape it. By the window, amber glasses caught the morning light.

Two round bundles of niku mosso sat on a wooden plate. I tied them up in a red furoshiki cloth to take to the neighboring island: breakfast with a view.

Watch this scene on YouTube1:32

Read this scene in the full journey