When it's too hot and you have no appetite, add ginger and a thickened sauce

I am Tomo Takehara, a nursery school cook by day and a food writer as a side job.

In my main job, I also create menus since there is no nutritionist, so I am actually quite good at coming up with recipes.

Heatstroke alert warnings are being issued almost every day.

I feel like I say "It's hot!" about once every 30 minutes.

Cooking when it's hot is a hassle, isn't it?
Plus, the kids are home for summer vacation.
A triple punch of breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Just thinking about it makes me want to close my eyes.
And I don't really have much of an appetite for eating either...

Even though it's hot, these are the points I want to prioritize when I'm making meals.

• Get protein and vegetables quickly

• Make it easily and quickly

• Minimize dishwashing

The dish that fulfills these three requirements is

the "donburi" (rice bowl).

There are so many rice bowls, like oyakodon, gyudon, chukadon, and tenshindon.

You can put in plenty of leftover vegetables from the fridge, stir-fry or simmer them with meat, and season them.

Binding them with egg is also great for a change of flavor!

It locks in the water-soluble vitamins from the vegetables, and when you pour it over white rice, the flavor soaks into the rice, creating an exquisite rice bowl.

It's irresistible.

In the summer, adding ginger and salt to the rice bowl topping makes even better things happen.

The pungent component in ginger changes into something called "shogaol" when heated, which activates the internal organs.

Activating the internal organs warms you from the inside, which is perfect for a body chilled by air conditioning!

Actually, I just learned about this regarding ginger pork. I'm putting it out there.

New food information keeps coming out one after another, so it's hard to keep up. But it's fun!

And as for salt... I'm including it for the sake of salt replenishment.

If you put plenty of summer vegetables in a rice bowl, wouldn't that be perfect for heatstroke prevention?

Please take a look at this article too if you'd like!

"Salted Vegetable Starchy Sauce Bowl" Recipe

I will introduce an easy appetite-boosting recipe containing ginger and salt.

It's called the "Salted Vegetable Starchy Sauce Bowl." We made this at the nursery school this summer too!
This time, I will provide the measurements for two adults.

Ingredients (for 2 adults)

• Pork 160g

• Onion 1 small

• Carrot 1 small

• Cabbage 4 leaves

• Sesame oil 4g

• Ginger (tube is fine) about 2cm

• Light soy sauce 6g

• Chicken stock powder 2g

• Salt a little

• Water 100g

• Potato starch 4g

How to make

1. Put sesame oil and ginger in a frying pan, stir-fry the onion, carrot, and pork, and once they are cooked through, add the cabbage and stir-fry.

2. Once the vegetables have wilted, add water and simmer.

3. Season with chicken stock powder and light soy sauce, then add salt.

4. Thicken with a potato starch slurry, pour over rice, and it's ready.

This is an easy rice bowl dish that you can make by stir-frying whatever leftover vegetables or meat you have on hand! It's also delicious with chicken instead of pork, so I highly recommend it.

Let's get through the end of summer with rice bowl dishes!

I feel like we have rice bowl dishes at my house about two or three times a week.