Salmon Fried Rice with Bonito Flakes -- Cat Rice "Neko Manma"

Cat Rice --"Neko Manma"（猫まんま）

"Shinya shokudo" (深夜食堂, "Midnight Dinner") is a Japanese TV series consisting of stories of normal people narrated from the angle of the small late-night restaurant's owner, with each episodes seemingly unrelated in content, but some characteristics of some characters remained the same. 

In the second episode, there was a girl who had a dream. She dreamt of becoming an famous singer, while she was just a unknown "En ka" (演歌, a traditional style of Japanese singing) singer to most people. She showed up one day at the restaurant, gently sliding open the door. The owner was just about to close the restaurant, so they met face to face as the girl poked her head inside. It was near 6 o'clock in the morning. She did not show any extra expression, but she walked a step away, as she was probably frightened a bit. "Do you have bonito today?", she turned back and asked carefully, "Yes I do, what's up?" 

"I would like to have bonito flakes over a bowl of warm rice, dressed with soy sauce." 

She responded with her eyes filled with excitement as if she wanted to tell you a million things, but at the same time, she sounded so calm and quiet, like a cat. "So that's Neko Manma you want?" She nodded.

The bonito flakes on rice

"Neko Manma", translated as "Cat Rice". There is a scene where the middle age man sitting by the girl guessing that she was from the northeast of Japan, and he said that people from west part of Japan has their Neko Manma made differently. Instead of using bonito flakes and soy sauce, they have their version with Miso soup. 

In Taiwan, we have the saying of Neko Manma as well (Maybe it is just in my family. as I asked my Taiwanese friends, and the saying seems to be without culture-wide recognition). As I know, it often refers to any kind of soup with rice. 

This is what Neko Manma looked like in my mind

This is the first time that I have my knowledge for Neko Manma changed, and this idea of putting bonito flakes on top of rice dressed with soy sauce intrigues me deeply. 

The difficult salmon

My roommates happened to make salmon on Thursday, so I got the chance to fulfill the request that caused them "a lot of" inconvenience. They used to cover the salmon fillet with KEWPIE mayo and dill weed and then bake it (it tastes very good, but it is my friend's recipe, so I wouldn't write about it, not in a while), and I asked them to spare a portion from any seasonings for me. It became all green with only a corner orangish pink. 

My little corner (: thank you roommates!

I intended to eat it as lunch on Friday as I got two midterms in the morning and I would probably be worn out after that. What I did not expect was that I was not only worn out but also deprived of appetite. 

Finally, yesterday I woke up super late, and still not feel like doing anything, but I was a little bit hungry. The salmon came up to me, and I checked for rice, yes, there was some brown rice for one. I microwaved my salmon for three minutes, and to my surprise, all the fat inside the salmon was all "waved" out, immersing the fillet in the liquid mixture of oil and moisture. When I took it out, it was still sizzling.  

Well, it seemed like my food didn't want me to treat them impolitely.

Salmon Fried Rice "Neko Manma"

I turned the stove on to mid-high and dumped in the salmon and rice. I started separating the fish into small pieces and stir-fried it with rice. The fat in the salmon is sufficient to make the rice "not so sticky" to the pan (if you leave it untended for a few seconds, it's still going to stick) so just give it enough toss and turns. 

When the rice and the salmon is readily mixed, shuffle the rice to the side and spare a little flat space for an egg. Crack an egg and stir it immediately (the egg yolk and the egg white don't have to be very evenly mixed).  Stir everything together and stir-fry the mixture until everything became relatively dry again (this depend on how do you like your dish, I like it when you can tell that the rice does not form clots, and when they move, they move in slow motion). 

Basically, it's done. Add some sliced scallion and salt, you have a bowl of delicious salmon fried rice. Add some sliced scallion, bonito flakes (best if you have some freshly shredded. Tell me how it's like! I envy you!), and two circles of lightly streaming soy sauce (do not add salt here because the bonito and the soy sauce are already savory enough). 

Don't be frightened when you see the bonito flakes dance! You should enjoy it, that means you have your rice steaming, and that is when you will have your best bite!

My Salmon fried rice Neko Manma! Yum!