This delightful rice dish offers a harmonious blend of temperatures and textures, combining warm, buttery rice with a chilled cucumber sauce, tangy pickles, and eggs with soft centers. The juxtaposition of hot and cold components delivers a refreshing yet comforting meal, ideal for a quick summer lunch or a weeknight dinner.
To create this satisfying meal, you’ll need 200g of Japanese short-grain rice, two medium eggs, 40g of soft salted butter, and finely sliced spring onions. For seasoning, have salt and black pepper on hand. The pickled cucumbers require 200g of baby cucumbers, sliced into rounds, along with flaky sea salt, caster sugar, white-wine vinegar, olive oil, fresh dill, and dried mint. For the cucumber sauce, a large peeled and deseeded cucumber, crème fraîche, salt, garlic, and an ice cube are necessary.
Begin the preparation by making the pickles. Toss the sliced cucumbers with salt in a heatproof bowl. Mix freshly boiled water with sugar and white-wine vinegar in another bowl, then pour this over the cucumbers and let them pickle. While the cucumbers marinate, rinse the rice under cold water until clear and drain it well. Cook using either a rice cooker or a saucepan with cold water and a pinch of salt, bringing it to a boil, then reducing the heat, covering, and allowing it to cook for eight minutes. Leave it covered off the heat for another 10 minutes.
For the cucumber sauce, blend the cucumber with crème fraîche, salt, and garlic until smooth and refrigerate with an ice cube to maintain its chilled state. Cook the eggs in boiling water for seven minutes, cool them under running water, and peel them carefully. Once the cucumbers have pickled, drain them and mix with olive oil, dill, and mint.
When assembling the dish, divide the warm rice into two bowls, adding pieces of soft butter that will melt over it. Surround the rice with the chilled cucumber sauce and add the pickled cucumbers. Halve the eggs and place them on top, finishing with spring onions and a generous seasoning of salt and black pepper. Serve immediately to enjoy the contrast of warm rice and eggs against the chilled sauce and crisp pickles, creating a light and flavorful meal that doesn’t require complex preparation.
