Donburi (丼, lit. "bowl", less commonly spelled "domburi") is a Japanese "rice bowl dish" consisting of fish, meat, vegetables or other ingredients simmered together and served over rice. Donburi meals are served in oversized rice bowls also called donburi. The ingredients are often set at the last minute with egg. Donburi are sometimes called sweetened or savory stews on rice.
The simmering sauce varies according to season, ingredient, region, and taste. A typical sauce might consist of dashi flavored with shoyu and mirin. Proportions vary, but there is normally three to four times as much dashi as shoyu and mirin. For oyakodon, Tsuji (1980) recommends dashi flavored with light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and sugar. For gyudon, Tsuji recommends water flavored with dark soy sauce and mirin.
Traditional Japanese donburi include oyakodon (simmered chicken, egg and onion on rice), katsudon (breaded deep-fried pork cutlets (tonkatsu), onion, and egg on rice), tendon (tempura shrimp and vegetables on rice), and gyudon (beef and onion on rice).
Donburi can be made from almost any ingredients,however, including left-overs. Inexpensive Chinese restaurants in Japan often serve chukadon or gomoku-chukadon—stir-fried assorted vegetables with some meat over rice in a big bowl. Not traditionally Japanese or Chinese, the hybrid dish indicates the popularity of donburi in Japan.
A simple home-made donburi meal might be made by sauteeing onions until cooked and then adding simmering sauce, bite-sized pieces of chicken (or meat or tofu or other main ingredient) and simmering until all is cooked. One or two lightly beaten eggs and sliced scallion are added and all is simmered until the eggs are nearly cooked (edges set). The nearly set egg and meat concoction together with the nearly boiled away donburi simmering sauce are poured on top of hot rice in a donburi bowl. Served hot and eaten with chopsticks.
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