Recreating Jigo's Miso Porridge from Princess Mononoke: Porridge Cooked from Raw Rice in 15 Minutes, with Simmered Spinach

The shoot took place around "day two," and Ryuji says this is the time when he starts craving porridge. So this time he took up an anime meal, specifically a "Ghibli meal." The subject is Princess Mononoke, in the scene where Ashitaka provides the rice and the monk Jigo provides the miso to cook porridge.

According to Ryuji, people often say about this scene that "Ashitaka is getting the short end of the deal, since he puts up rice while Jigo only puts up miso." On the other hand, he noted that there is also a theory that miso was more expensive at the time, so it is actually Ashitaka who is being treated.

Ryuji said, "I've checked every food scene in Ghibli," and touched on dishes from other films: the ham ramen in Ponyo (the ham is a little thick) and the bacon and eggs in Howl's Moving Castle. He said meals appear memorably in all of Hayao Miyazaki's works. He also mentioned that he would like to make the pasta from Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro someday. Unsure whether Ghibli films can be called anime meals, he named the genre "Ghibli meals."

The only ingredients are rice, miso, and garlic chives, and Ryuji calls it "super simple." The quantities, for 2 to 3 servings, are 150 g of raw rice, 900 cc of water, 1 teaspoon of kombu dashi, a little over 2 tablespoons of miso, and 50 g of garlic chives. Since it uses no fat, he positions it as a "slimming meal."

In the original, the porridge is cooked over a campfire. Because Jigo is a monk, no meat goes in. Ryuji added kombu dashi, but he admits that in the original they "definitely didn't use it." He added it anyway because he thinks miso alone doesn't taste good to modern people, and the umami of dashi is needed. The amount of dashi is just 1 teaspoon. If you don't have granulated dashi, he says you can substitute regular kombu and salt.

He also touched on the lack of protein. When a staff member asked, "Are you adding an egg at the end?", he replied that Jigo is a monk, so he doesn't eat eggs. If you were to add something, it would be tofu, but this porridge is complete as it is, so protein should be provided by a separate dish. Chilled tofu, natto, and fried tofu came up as options, and this time he decided to make a side dish using fried tofu.

The rice only needs a light rinse. Ryuji said, "It's a void meal," and got it done quickly.

What stands out in the method is that instead of starting the rice in cold water, he adds it to boiling water. According to Ryuji, porridge is normally cooked starting from water, but adding the rice after it boils is a Chinese method that shortens the cooking time. He could have reproduced the original entirely, but he chose the easier way. With this method, it cooks in about 15 minutes over medium heat.

The garlic chives go in at the end, because adding them early makes them lose their moisture. While it's on the heat, you can mostly leave it alone, but since it can stick to the bottom of the pot, he recommended checking occasionally by scraping the bottom. On the subject of eating only rice, Ryuji remarked, "People in the old days could move that much on just rice."

As a side dish that can be made in the 15 minutes it takes the porridge to cook, he makes simmered spinach and fried tofu. The ingredients are about 200 g of spinach, 3 sheets of fried tofu (cheap ones are fine), 2 pinches of salt, 1 teaspoon of Hondashi, 100 cc of water, and 2 teaspoons of soy sauce.

Here Ryuji explained the benefits of boiling. Boiling removes oxalic acid from the spinach and oil from the fried tofu, making them healthier. He said that taking in too much oxalic acid can cause stones to form in the body, and that middle-aged men are apparently especially prone to them. Since oxalic acid is water-soluble, he says boiling removes a good deal of it. If you stir-fry the spinach as is to save time, the oxalic acid remains.

Cutting the spinach before boiling it helps the oxalic acid come out more easily. He says the root end is the most nutritious part, so you should eat it. He also mentioned that spinach is in season during the cold months, and that now is exactly that time.

The boiling method is as follows. Put the stems first into water with a little salt added to improve the color. The fried tofu can go in at the same time. Then add the leaves and take everything out after about 30 seconds to 1 minute. Overcooking makes the spinach lose its crisp texture.

After draining in a colander, don't rinse with water, because it will cool down. Instead, let it sit for a while to drain. Fried tofu absorbs a lot of water, so if it stays soaked with the water containing dissolved oxalic acid, you end up taking in a lot of oxalic acid after all.

Once drained, return it to the pot, add 1 teaspoon of Hondashi and 100 cc of water, put it on the heat, and add about 2 teaspoons of soy sauce to taste. He says that because the moisture has been removed, it soaks up the dashi well and becomes delicious. The result is a gentle flavor like something you'd find at an obanzai restaurant, and you can top it with bonito flakes at the end. He also said this method doesn't work with frozen spinach; the dish only works because you're boiling fresh spinach.

The side dish was ready just in time for the porridge's 15 minutes. Ryuji said, "Cooking requires this kind of calculation."

After 15 minutes, the liquid hadn't fully cooked off, so he cooked it for about another 5 minutes over medium heat. From here, he says you can judge by appearance and preference.

The thing to watch out for is that adding miso increases the thickness. If you add miso after reducing the liquid too much, it becomes "sticky" rather than just thick. So he moved on to the miso a little early.

Instead of simmering the miso from the start, he turns off the heat and adds it afterward, dissolving it well with chopsticks. Ryuji added a little over 2 tablespoons and explained that it blends in as you stir. He used the miso he normally uses, because it tastes good. When a staff member asked whether red or white miso is better, he replied that red is also delicious. Once the miso dissolved, the porridge took on a thick consistency.

Finally, the garlic chives go in. The chives that day were slightly wilted, but Ryuji said they're perfectly usable if you pick out the damaged parts, adding that some people throw them away when they get like this, but they're still edible, so you should be grateful for your ingredients. He used half a bag, about 50 g, and says that adding too much lets the chive flavor take over. Since the miso is salty, additional salt is basically unnecessary.

In the original, the porridge was cooked in a pot like a kettle, but this time he used a home pot instead. Since it's a watery dish, he says it whets the appetite more when paired with a drier side dish rather than a soup. It can also be made ahead; if it gets cold, just reheat it on the stove.

Even while he was plating and taking photos, the porridge kept getting thicker. Ryuji was confident, calling it "moving-level delicious."

The two staff members' reactions were positive: "Delicious," and "I really love this." Ryuji says it's "quintessential Japanese food" made without oil, and if you eat this, you'll lose weight. Because it has a lot of liquid, it's filling, and 1 go of rice (150 g) makes 3 servings.

As for the simmered spinach, a staff member commented, "Honestly I thought it might be a little bland, but it's not at all." They said it works perfectly well as a side for the porridge. For a change of flavor, he recommended shichimi chili pepper, which goes well with miso porridge, but added that it's for people with strong stomachs.

Ryuji said this: as you get older, you start wanting meals like this. It's precisely because meals like this exist that special dishes like hamburger steak or beef stew taste even better. Since the channel is updated every day, he thinks it needs recipes that warm the heart even if they don't get many views. Porridge takes time, but you can leave it alone, so it's not much work. He says it's also good for lunch or dinner when you've overeaten while dining out the day before.

During the meal, Ryuji brought up the notion that "if you eat a lot of things like ramen, you can no longer enjoy light flavors," and rejected it, saying, "That's absolutely false." He said they eat junk food too, but they also like dishes like this.

In Ryuji's view, the people who say this are mostly those who avoid junk food in their daily lives. If people who eat junk food can understand the taste of deeply flavorful, wholesome dishes, that would be a "loss of identity" for those people. Ryuji speculates that they want to believe they can appreciate the flavor because they put up with avoiding junk food. He then said that "that's one thing, and this is another," and that since this kind of talk makes no one happy, people should stop saying it.

A staff member described this meal as "really well balanced." Ryuji responded that he had kept the umami fairly restrained.

The conversation also moved on to a TV talk show. Ryuji's name had come up on the show, and a story was shared about someone who actually makes Ryuji's recipes.

In the end, everyone finished their food, and one staff member was in the middle of a second helping. Ryuji laughed, saying, "Partway through it was so good I forgot it was a Ghibli meal," and concluded that it must have been delicious to eat in that scene. He recommends this porridge made from raw rice with miso to viewers, saying it's also good for when you haven't cooked rice, and that he thinks it falls into the category of slimming meals.