The Ordinary and A Recipe for Takikomi Gohan

Autumn is fully here now, having followed through on its promise of shorter days and colder nights. In honour of the season, I cooked the popular autumn dish, takikomi gohan (or, mixed rice). The smell of the steaming seasoned rice, the heat cast by the simmering miso soup that took some of the chill off the room - I knew that these were nothing special. Why, then, do I want to recapture the moment?

Here's my recipe for takikomi gohan:

Ingredients
2 cups rice
1 small carrot
2 dried shiitake mushrooms
80 grams chicken thigh
1 tsp cooking sake (for seasoning the chicken)
1 cup stock
1/2 cup of water left from soaking the mushrooms
1 1/2 tsp sugar
2 tbsps sake
1 1/2 soy sauce
1/2 tsp salt.

1. Wash the rice.
2. remove the fat from the chicken, cut into small peices, sprinkle the sake on and let stand for about 10 mins.; cut the carrot into very thing julienne strips. Soak the shiitake in 1/2 water.
3. Pour the stock, mushroom-water, and the ingredients from #2 above into a pot and heat. When it begins to boil, add the sugar and sake, and continue to simmer for about 2 minutes. Add the soy sauce and salt, and continue to simmer briefly.
4. Prepare a sieve with a bowl underneath to catch the liquid. Transfer the ingredients of the pot into the sieve.
5. Pace the rice in the simmering liquid (in the bowl). If you need, you can add some water. Add the solid ingredients from the sieve and mix evenly. Put everything in the rice cooker and turn it on (or put everything in a pot if you don't have a cooker and begin cooking the rice as per usual).
6. When the cooking is done, mix everything well and eat.
6.