🍚 Keihan (Chicken rice)

“Keihan (Chicken rice)" is a typical local dish of the Amami region. It consists of shredded chicken meat, dried shiitake mushrooms, thin strips of egg, papaya preserved in miso and mandarin orange peel on white rice, which is served with chicken stock soup. It is said to have originated in the Amami Islands, which were once under the control of the Satsuma domain, and was created to soften the intimidating attitude of officials coming from the Kagoshima mainland. The officials were treated to "Keihan (chicken rice)", which was made with all the ingredients of chicken, an extremely valuable food at the time. Then, it was not yet customary to pour soup over the food, and it was eaten in the style of cooked chicken rice. Since the beginning of the Showa period (1926-1989), the arrangement of adding chicken soup over it became popular, and it is now a common practice.