Kamameshi

Kamameshi or kettle rice refers to a meal that is both cooked and served in a special cast iron pot called kama; hence the name. This traditional Japanese rice dish is prepared by simply steaming the rice with various kinds of meat, seafood, and vegetables.

Kamameshi is typically flavored with soy sauce, sake, or mirin, while most of its punch and crunch comes from the slightly burnt rice sticking to the bottom of the kama kettle. Some of the most popular varieties include seafood or kaisen kamameshi, chicken or tori kamameshi; crab meat or kani kamameshi, and gomoku kamameshi, which is by far one of the absolute favorites.

It is flavored with Japanese wild parsley called mitsuba and consists of mixed meats and vegetables such as chicken, crab meat, shrimps, carrots, bamboo shoots, and shiitake mushrooms. Kamameshi is said to have its origins in Takeshitakama, while the term emerged in the late Meiji period and later became associated with the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, when family members and coworkers shared their kamameshi by eating directly from the kama pot.

Nowadays, kamameshi dishes are most often prepared in small-scale replicas of the traditional, communal kama kettles and served as single portion meals.