What’s your favorite comfort dish that comes to mind when the weather is cold outside? Growing up in Japan, one of those dishes for me was Seafood Doria (シーフードドリア).
What is Doria?
Some of you may not have heard of Doria before. Doria (ドリア) is a Japanese rice gratin dish with various ingredients on top. It’s one of the signature Yoshoku (洋食, a western-influenced Japanese dish) menus along with Hambagu, Omurice, and Napolitan spaghetti. Typical Doria consists of steamed rice, covered with savory ingredients with sauce, and topped with melted cheese. The classic sauce is Bechamel sauce, also known as white sauce. This dish was invented in the 1930s by Swiss chef Saly Weil, the first master chef at Hotel New Grand in Yokohama, Japan. I love Doria so much that I’ve shared non-white sauce variations of my Doria, Curry Doria, and Meat Doria recipes on my blog. Throughout the years, I received a lot of requests for the classic Seafood Doria recipe, so I am really excited to share the recipe and video tutorial with you today!
4 Components of Seafood Doria
1. Butter Rice
For Doria, you can use regular steamed rice to cut down on calories. However, I highly suggest making butter rice and indulging in the ultimate Seafood Doria experience. You can add garlic and make it garlic butter rice, or add chopped parsley and make parsley butter rice (2 of my favorite). In today’s recipe, I sautéed onion and mushrooms with butter before adding cooked rice to the pan. It adds more flavors to the dish and it’s so delicious! Feel free to replace butter with olive oil for lighter calories.
2. Seafood & Toppings
This is where you can be creative with the dish and use your favorite choices of seafood. In today’s recipe, I put what you commonly see in Seafood Doria in Japan, shrimp, clams, scallops, and calamari. Feel free to add what you like! Mussels are a good choice too. If you’re not a seafood fan, you can use chicken (however, beef or pork are not common for Doria) or try different vegetables of your choice.
3. Bechamel Sauce
The sauce I used is also known as white sauce. An equal part of butter and flour (by volume) are cooked together to make a roux, then heated milk is added to the roux and cooked to the right consistency. It’s good to remember about 1 to 3 tablespoons of butter and flour per cup of milk, depending on the thickness of the sauce you desire. Today my recipe used a middle range of thickness: 2 Tbsp (butter) : 2 Tbsp (flour) : 1 cup (milk) ratio (but I doubled it). In Japan, Bechamel sauce is used in many Yoshoku dishes, including White Stew (ホワイトシチュー), Cream Croquette (クリームコロッケ), creamy pasta, gratin and doria.
4. Cheese
For gratins and Dorias, I love using flavorful cheese like Gruyère, which is creamy but has a bit of salty taste to it. I sometimes add two types of cheese to add some complexity, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese is always a good choice to add some accent.
Other Casserole Recipes
Curry Doria Meat Doria
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