Where do you hail from Miss Doria ?

Kinoko Doria. Mushroom Doria.

It’s a hot comforting dish totally adopted by Japan… but where does that come from exactly ? Big mystery !

It seems Miss Doria arrived, without her luggage in the port of Yokohoma, at least 100 years ago.

I never got an explanation from where it comes. What country ? Wikipedia says it’s from mine.

Roughly, their tale :

At the origine, the dish was created in a restaurant in Paris and name from the noble Italian family “Doria”. That was a dish with cucumber, egg, and tomato to represent the flag of Italy…. Then in 1925, it was made in Yokohama, by Swiss chef Saly Weil , with shrimp bechamel…

Logical ? Plausible ? Saly Weil arrived in Japan in 1927, they also say.

There is a little more on that chef on the web.

Saly was a man… I liked the idea of an international woman chef in the 1920′s. Too bad.

I have not found anything about Doria in Europe.

So you were born in Paris, Miss Doria ? Champignons de Paris, mushrooms. Why Paris ? Because they started growing some mousserons wild mushrooms in the caves under Paris. Probably at the time of the supposed Doria invention.

Make a 3 step doria

1. Make rice :

Rice pilaf or refried in sauce… any flavor is OK.

2. White layer

Top with white sauce and cheese. The layer can be… very thick. I am little player. I don’t want to be able to say it’s as thick as my waist and hear people giggle and say : “Oh yeah !”.

3 Gratinage

In the oven, 10 minutes. Serve hooooot ! You can even serve it on a keep-me-hooot brasero.

Kobe being a copycat town of Yokohama, it has a number of Doria Restaurants. All over Japan, it is served in the Yoshoku Restaurants. Yoshoku is old-style “Western for Japanese” food that started from Meiji Era. The Doria shops offer countless variations.

Types of Doria

Common colors of rice sauce : yellow (butter and “saffron”), red (tomato), orange, brown (meat sauce), green…

Common types : plain doria, chicken doria, seafood doria

Optional topping : I have seen some topped by : a hamburger, an egg, a big shrimp, tons of cheese, an omelette, sausages, meat-balls, fried items like croquettes…

Sunny sides.

Well, today’s flavor… it is a Milano-fu Doria (Doria Milanese)… totally un-Milanese, of course.

Mushrooms, onions, garlic, stir-fried brown rice, with lots of tomato paste, nutmeg, turmeric, herbes de Provence. I made 2 layers of rice. In between : raw spinach and Asian napa cabbage.

A thin layer of simple white sauce with a little Hokkaido cheddar. Flakes of aged parmesan (very hard…).

(meal with double serving of rice)

Cal 726 F25.9g C112.5g P28.6g