Mixed Rice ("Takikomi-Gohan")

Healthy and tasty rice dish with many ingredients. Everyone will love it!

Ingredients:
1 cup japanese rice
1/2 cup pearl barely
1 packet of shimeji mushrooms (large)
2 inch long carrot
1/4 tofu cutlet

For soup:
4/5 cups dashi stock or water
1 1/2 tsp. sugar
1 Tbsp sake
1 Tbsp Mirin
1 1/2 tsp light soy sauce or 4/5 tsp dark soy sauce  
1/2 tsp salt

Method:
1. Wash rice and barely 30 min prior to cooking and drain on colander.
2. Cut carrots into julienne strips. Wash and drain mushrooms. Cut tofu into thin triangles.
3. Pour in the stock, mushroom, carrots and tofu into pot, and heat everything. When it begins to boil lightly, add sugar and sake, and continue to simmer for 1-2 minutes. Add the soy sauce and salt, continue to simmer briefly.
4. Drain all ingredients through a sieve, reserving cooking liquid. Note: let all ingredients cool completely before cooking rice, hence it might start burning in the rice cooker.
5. Place rice and barely into rice cooker, add simmering liquid. If there is not enough simmering liquid, add some water. Add solid ingredients from the sieve and mix everything lightly. Turn on heater. Note: water should be just a little bit above rice.
6. When cooking is finished, keep the cooker covered and let stand for 10 minutes (do not use function "Keep Warm"!). Open the lid and mix everything. Serve warm with some trefoil if you like.