Kani zosui / steamed rice with crab and egg in broth

A gentle, savory rice dish with quickly simmered crabmeat in soy sauce flavored dashi. Egg adds extra mildness while mitsuba highlights the whole combination. This warms up your body and is also great for a tired stomach.

<Ingredients>

2 bowls of steamed rice (either hot or cold)
70-100 g crabmeat (70 g in photo)
2 shiitake mushrooms (optional)
1 egg
Several stems mitsuba
500-600 cc dashi
1 1/2 tbsp usukuchi soy sauce
Salt to taste


<Directions>
1.

In a pot, put dashi and usukuchi soy sauce, and bring to boil.

2.

Beat egg, chop mitsuba, and slice shiitake.

3.

Bring some water (1500-2000 cc) to a boil. In a strainer, place steamed rice, and pour boiling water to smooth rice grains. Drain well.

4.

When broth boils, reduce heat to medium or medium low, and add shiitake.

When shiitake is cooked (turns somewhat translucent), add rice and crabmeat. 

Taste, and add salt as necessary.

5.

Slowly swirl in egg.

Add mitsuba stems. 

When egg starts to cook, gently go over the bottom of pot once with a ladle, remove from heat, and cover.


Wait 30-60 seconds until egg is done. 

6.

Serve in individual bowls, and top with mitsuba leaves.

<Notes>

• Adjust the amount of dashi according to the volume of steamed rice. The above photo is on the soupy end.
• If mitsuba is very tender, you can add stems at the very end (after serving in individual bowls). If mitsuba leaves are tough, add them to the pot to make them tender instead of adding them to individual bowls after serving. (Store-bought, packaged mitsuba is likely to be hydro-cultured and tender.)
• Rinsing rice with boiling water is optional. If bothersome, or a cloudy, thicker broth at the end is not a concern, you can skip this process. But make sure to reheat rice (microwave) if using cold/frozen steamed rice.
• The basic ingredients here are rice, crabmeat and egg. Shiitake is optional. Mitsuba is a very common and highly recommended garnish, but if not available, try something with a spicy note such as mizuna, mibuna, kabu leaves or daikon leaves. You can add other ingredients such as leafy greens, green onion, daikon radish, or something with a gentle flavor. 
• Zosui is the general term for a rice dish in which steamed rice is quickly cooked with other ingredients in flavored broth. Cooking steamed rice in nabe hot pot broth after nabe ingredients are gone is also called zosui.