Enjoy a special dinner of Seafood Doria! It‘s an impressive yet simple Japanese rice gratin dish loaded with clams, scallops, shrimp, or your choice of seafood over buttery rice and topped with melted cheese.

A white gratin dish containing Seafood Doria (Rice Gratin).

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.

A white gratin dish containing Seafood Doria (Rice Gratin).

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!

A white gratin dish containing Seafood Doria (Rice Gratin).

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.

A white gratin dish containing Seafood Doria (Rice Gratin).

Other Casserole Recipes

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A white gratin dish containing Seafood Doria (Rice Gratin).

Seafood Doria

4.86 from 14 votes
Enjoy a special dinner of Seafood Doria! It‘s an impressive yet simple Japanese rice gratin dish loaded with clams, scallops, shrimp, or your choice of seafood over buttery rice and topped with melted cheese.

Video

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Servings: 4

Ingredients
 
 

For the Butter Rice

  • ½ onion
  • 4 mushrooms (cremini or button)
  • Tbsp unsalted butter (for salted butter, reduce the amount of salt you add while cooking)
  • 4 servings cooked Japanese short-grain rice (about 1 cup or 150 g per serving)
  • tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt
  • tsp freshly ground black pepper

For the Seafood and Sauce

  • 16 manila clams
  • 24 baby scallops
  • 12 large and jumbo shrimp
  • 4 small calamari
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • ½ cup white wine (or water)

For the Bechamel Sauce

  • 4 Tbsp unsalted butter
  • 4 Tbsp all-purpose flour (plain flour)
  • 2 cups warm milk
  • freshly ground black pepper
  • ¼ cup reserved seafood sauce (see the instructions below)
  • 1 tsp soy sauce
Japanese Ingredient Substitution: If you want substitutes for Japanese condiments and ingredients, click here.

Instructions
 

  • Gather all the ingredients. For the cooked rice, please note that 1½ cups (300 g, 2 rice cooker cups) of uncooked Japanese short-grain rice yield 4⅓ cups (660 g) of cooked white rice, enough for 4 servings. See how to cook short-grain rice with a rice cookerpot over the stoveInstant Pot, or donabe.
    Seafood Doria Ingredients

To Prepare the Ingredients

  • Grease the gratin dishes with ½ Tbsp unsalted butter.
    Seafood Doria 1
  • Using the tip of a sharp knife or hands, cut off the smaller stalks of 1 head broccoli from the larger central stalk to remove whole florets, rotating the head of broccoli as you go. Prepare a medium bowl of ice water.
    Seafood Doria 2
  • Bring a small saucepan of water to a rapid boil. Add ¼ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt. Add the broccoli florets and cook until crisp-tender, 1 to 1½ minutes. Remove with a fine-mesh sieve and plunge immediately into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Drain and set aside.
    Seafood Doria 3

To Make the Butter Rice

  • Chop ½ onion finely and cut 4 mushrooms into thin slices.
    Seafood Doria 4
  • In a large frying pan, heat 1½ Tbsp unsalted butter over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until tender.
    Seafood Doria 5
  • Add the mushrooms and sauté until tender. Then add 4 servings cooked Japanese short-grain rice. Break up the big chunks of rice and combine well.
    Seafood Doria 6
  • Season with ⅛ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt and ⅛ tsp freshly ground black pepper. Divide the rice into 4 portions and transfer the rice to the individual gratin dishes. Cover with aluminum foil and keep warm.
    Seafood Doria 7

To Make the Seafood Mix

  • Clean 16 manila clams and 24 baby scallops, and peel and devein 12 large and jumbo shrimp. (For tips, see my posts on how to clean clams and devein shrimp.) Cut the bodies of 4 small calamari into rings. Finally, cut 2 cloves garlic into thin slices.
    Seafood Doria 8
  • In a large frying pan, heat 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil and cook the sliced garlic on medium heat until fragrant. Then, add all the seafood to the pan.
    Seafood Doria 9
  • Stir fry to coat the seafood with oil. Add ½ cup white wine and cover with a lid. Cook until all the clams open up.
    Seafood Doria 10
  • Once all the clam shells are open (dispose of any unopened ones), season with freshly ground black pepper. Then, remove all the seafood to a plate/bowl and cover with aluminum foil. Set aside.
    Seafood Doria 11
  • Simmer the remaining seafood sauce in the frying pan until the sauce is reduced in half, roughly ¼ cup. Keep the sauce in a bowl or measuring cup.
    Seafood Doria 12

To Make the Bechamel Sauce

  • First, make a roux. In a large frying, heat 4 Tbsp unsalted butter on medium-low heat. Once melted, add 4 Tbsp all-purpose flour (plain flour) to the pan.
    Seafood Doria 13
  • Blend the flour and butter until no more lumps. Keep stirring to avoid burning the roux.
    Seafood Doria 14
  • To the roux, gradually add 2 cups warm milk, a tiny bit at a time. Combine the roux and milk well, scraping the bottom of the pan, before adding more milk.
    Seafood Doria 15
  • Once blended well, season with freshly ground black pepper. Add ¼ cup reserved seafood sauce and keep stirring to combine with the béchamel sauce.
    Seafood Doria 16
  • Add 1 tsp soy sauce and mix well to combine. Keep stirring and cook on low heat until the desired consistency.
    Seafood Doria 17

To Assemble and Broil

  • When the sauce consistency thickens and you can draw a line on the bottom of the pan, add the seafood.
    Seafood Doria 18
  • Mix well and add the blanched broccoli.
    Seafood Doria 19
  • Pour the seafood mix and béchamel sauce on the butter rice in gratin dishes. Make sure each one gets all the different ingredients.
    Seafood Doria 20
  • Sprinkle with freshly grated Gruyere cheese and 2 Tbsp panko (Japanese breadcrumbs) for a crispy texture.
    Seafood Doria 21
  • Set the oven to broil (High) and preheat for 5 minutes. Put the gratin dishes in the oven and broil for 2–3 minutes until the cheese has melted and turned a golden color on top. Garnish with Italian parsley and serve warm.
    Seafood Doria 22

To Store

  • Keep the leftovers in an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for up to 3 days and in the freezer for a month.

Nutrition

Calories: 766 kcal · Carbohydrates: 62 g · Protein: 54 g · Fat: 32 g · Saturated Fat: 15 g · Polyunsaturated Fat: 3 g · Monounsaturated Fat: 11 g · Trans Fat: 1 g · Cholesterol: 437 mg · Sodium: 781 mg · Potassium: 1411 mg · Fiber: 5 g · Sugar: 10 g · Vitamin A: 1735 IU · Vitamin C: 143 mg · Calcium: 316 mg · Iron: 5 mg
Author: Namiko Hirasawa Chen
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Japanese
Keyword: doria, gratin, seafood
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4.86 from 14 votes (13 ratings without comment)
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Tried this following the recipe exactly and the whole family absolutely loved it. Many thanks for sharing this awesome recipe5 stars

Hi Ekmai! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe and for your kind feedback!
We are so happy to hear you and your family enjoyed Seafood Doria!😊