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Rice bowls gaining popularity

We have seen the future of food and it's served in a bowl, on top of rice, along with an attractive arrangement of brightly colored vegetables, garnishes, and sauce. It's nutritious, it's cheap, it's bursting with flavor and texture: The rice bowl is everything.

Tahini Kale Slaw bowl image from SPROUTED KITCHEN BOWL AND SPOON by Sara Forte. 
HUGH FORTE
Tahini Kale Slaw bowl image from SPROUTED KITCHEN BOWL AND SPOON by Sara Forte. HUGH FORTERead more

We have seen the future of food and it's served in a bowl, on top of rice, along with an attractive arrangement of brightly colored vegetables, garnishes, and sauce. It's nutritious, it's cheap, it's bursting with flavor and texture: The rice bowl is everything.

"It's a way of eating that's been around for 2,000 years," says David Katz, culinary director of HoneyGrow restaurants, now with seven locations in the region. "People around the world find rice comforting - it's like soul food."

HoneyGrow will launch a new rice bowl with wok-cooked togarashi-spiced ground turkey and string beans when it retools its menu in March. Two separate rice-bowl restaurant concepts, from the owners of WokWorks and Hai Street Kitchen, will come to Philadelphia this year. Meanwhile, in food blog land, home cooks who document their experiments are whipping up rice bowls at a furious pace.

The idea of eating raw and cooked elements over rice is nothing new. Nick Muzyczka, co-owner of Hai Street Kitchen, links this contemporary Western fascination to a growing interest in quick Asian eats, like buns, satay, and ramen. The current incarnation of rice bowls takes inspiration from traditional fare like bibimbap, the Korean composed bowl of rice, vegetables, chili paste, and meat, or even the Japanese chirashi, rice topped with deconstructed sushi (fish, vegetables, egg, and nori). But, like everything else in our hyper-crosscultural, flavor-seeking world, the rice bowl has been bastardized in a billion delicious new ways. Hoisin sauce meets lemongrass chicken; seared tuna can interface with peanut sauce.

What differentiates the rice bowl from, say, a curry or stir-fry is that the ingredients are composed on top of the rice, allowing the eater to combine as desired. "You've got bright, lightly cooked greens, red peppers or carrots, white sesame seeds, a green or red sauce - the colors are very appealing," WokWorks owner Brendan Foxman says.

The mix of textures is also key. After all, the challenge of simultaneously capturing the individual rice bowl components with eating utensils is half the fun.

There are great reasons this approach to eating is gaining steam (and steamers). For one thing, it's a meal that works all day long. Vegetarian, gluten-free, high-protein, kale-craving - there's a way to configure a rice bowl for every preference or need.

That flexibility also extends to the number of people served. At home, the rice bowl works easily for one - cook up the rice and top it with small portions of available vegetables (leftovers!), protein, sauce, and garnishes. But it can also make a fun family meal, especially when the ingredients are set up for DIY assemblage. In her cookbook Dinner Solved! (Workman, 2015), Katie Workman provides an excellent game plan with mix-and-match lists for ingredients.

The rice itself can be improvised: brown, red, and black varieties work just as easily as jasmine, sushi rice, or long-grain white. Or swap the rice for more nutritious grains like quinoa, millet, amaranth, freekeh, whole wheat couscous, or even a savory oatmeal. (Just don't use noodles. That's a different bowl altogether.)

As critical as the grains are the veggies - the more the better: steamed, sautéed, roasted, or raw. Cubes of browned tofu, braised shredded chicken, lightly cooked fish or slices of roast pork come next. Add a poached or runny fried egg or ripe slices of avocado for lusciousness. Kimchi, a flash of pickled vegetables, or some hot peppers supply pungency and clarity to the quieter flavors. Complete the bowl with a crisp dimension like fried shallots, sesame seeds, crumbled seaweed, nuts, and/or bean sprouts. Finally, add a drizzle of oil or sauce - ginger-carrot dressing, tahini sauce, and a sriracha mayo are some can't-lose choices. Alternatively, the sauce can be spooned into the bottom of the bowl so it gets scooped up with every bite.

Japanese and Korean ingredients seem most obvious, but the rice bowl can easily serve as a conduit for any flavor profile - Caribbean, Mexican, Indian, Middle Eastern, even Italian. The very simple Com Tuc Rice Bowl from Lucky Peach 101 Easy Asian Recipes (Clarkson Potter, 2015) is based on a traditional Vietnamese breakfast: broken rice topped with lemongrass-scented pork sausage and fried egg and finished with a splash of sweet-sour nuoc cham sauce and fresh herbs. (No need to pigeonhole it for breakfast, as it's equally delicious for lunch and dinner.)

With an emphasis on veggies, small amounts of protein and overall portion control, the rice bowl wins for conscious eaters. "People like heat and spice, and interesting flavors, and the rice bowl is a way to introduce all of that while still delivering a healthy meal," says Muzyczka.

One can practically feel cells regenerating while eating the Tahini Kale Slaw and Roasted Tamari Portobello Bowl from The Sprouted Kitchen Bowl and Spoon (Ten Speed Press, 2015) cookbook - an entire tome devoted to food eaten out of bowls! - by well-known blogger Sara Forte. She also has recipes for a jerk-seasoned whitefish and tropical fruit salsa bowl, a Hawaiian ahi tuna poke bowl, and a lentil and rice bowl with grilled vegetables.

Mostly, the rice bowl is convenient, and the ability to take in all the major food groups in one forkful cannot be underestimated. "People are rushed for time but they still want something satisfying," Katz says. I'm willing to bet that its popularity has to do with the fact that a rice bowl is the kind of meal you can eat, chopsticks or fork in one hand while banging out emails on a cellphone in the other. You can do it all at once."