Autumn Delicacy: 'Easy Sweet Potato Rice'

This morning, while doing my usual morning stroll through note, I found this recipe ⇩

It's the 'Easy Sweet Potato Rice' recipe by note creator and former salaryman turned home cook, Furao.

The recipes Furao introduces are often simple and easy to make, making them a strong ally for the cook in every household.

I learn something new every time I see them.

Truth be told, I, Itsuki, am a huge sweet potato lover.

Back when there was a Don Quijote on my way home from work, I would buy one on the way back and make it a daily routine to act like a suspicious person, stuffing my face with a baked sweet potato as a reward in a park along the route.

Don Quijote's baked sweet potatoes are amazingly cheap (though the wave of price hikes has hit, you can still buy them for around 200 yen) and they are the best, being melty and sweet.

Eating a baked sweet potato in a park during the chilly season after work was the ultimate comfort...
(Of course, this isn't a story about Niigata. It's from when I lived in Tokyo, where the winters are easy to spend. If you did that in a Niigata winter, it would just be torture.)

Even now, if a mobile baked sweet potato vendor comes by, I'll dash out of the house just as I am and run to catch the old man's truck.

If I see baked sweet potatoes at the supermarket, I end up buying them without thinking.

If there are candied sweet potatoes in the deli section or at a conveyor belt sushi place, I'll buy them with a high probability.

In any case, I just love sweet potatoes.

This recipe is just putting rice and a whole (raw) sweet potato into the rice cooker, cooking it as usual, and then adding butter and mixing it at the end.

The destructive power of the sweet potato rice in the header photo...

If I see such a simple and wonderful recipe first thing in the morning, my head is bound to be filled with nothing but sweet potato rice while I'm at work.

Since I have 'grass-fed butter coffee' for breakfast on weekdays, I also keep butter in stock at home.

Butter is a luxury item, butto enjoy the best taste of autumn,why don't I go all out and splurge?

New rice (autumn) x sweet potato (autumn) x butter (unknown) is just...

It's bound to be the best taste of autumn...!!

And so.

I picked up some sweet potatoes on the way home and decided to make it right away.

I'll start making it immediately.

The sweet potato Itsuki bought was too small, and I regretted later that I should have put in a bigger one.

Also, I mixed it so hard that the sweet potato has almost no shape left (lol).

I really wanted to get that chunky sweet potato feel like Furao-san's~

But the scent of butter, rice, and sweet potato rising while I was mixing it was irresistible...!

Just the smell alone is delicious.

The sweet potato is moist, and the new rice is even glossier thanks to the butter.

The sweetness and gentle flavors of all three combined were delicious.

The recipe mentioned that butter is optional, but I highly recommend it because it adds such wonderful richness and aroma.

It suggested using salted butter, but since I only had unsalted, I sprinkled on a little of our favorite sun-dried salt.

The extra saltiness was a great addition too!

This is much more filling than it looks.

I made a side dish too, but I couldn't eat it at all!

Furao-san's recipe introduced both a glutinous rice and white rice version and a white rice only version, so I went with the white rice version.

Adding glutinous rice would probably make it even more filling! Since it's sweet potato, it's also quite satisfying.

It was such an easy mixed rice dish that it's filling enough to not even need a side dish!

Furao-san, thank you for the wonderful recipe!

If you're interested, please give it a try. For detailed measurements and steps, head over to Furao-san's original article!