Ebi Doria

Doria was created at the Hotel New Grand in Yokohama, which opened in 1927, by its first head chef, the Swiss-born Saly Weil. As the story is told by the hotel, Weil improvised the dish for a guest who was unwell and asked for something easy to swallow, building it from butter rice topped with shrimp in cream sauce, covered with gratin sauce and cheese and baked. It went onto the menu as 'Shrimp Doria' and became a signature of the hotel, reportedly named after the noble Italian Doria family. Through Weil's apprentices it spread to other hotels and restaurants and became a standard yoshoku dish across Japan.

The top is a blistered, golden crust of browned cheese over a creamy white sauce that gives way to soft, plump shrimp and a layer of savoury, buttery rice. It is hot, rich and smooth, the sauce coating each grain, the shrimp sweet and just firm, with a faint nuttiness from the toasted cheese. Eaten hot and just-baked it is silky; if it sits the sauce stiffens and the rice can dry at the edges, and undercooked bechamel tastes raw and floury rather than mellow.

The dish layers three components that finish together under the broiler. The rice is cooked and seasoned—often as a butter rice or pilaf—so it holds its own beneath the sauce. The bechamel is a white sauce made by cooking flour in butter to a pale roux, then whisking in milk so the starch swells and thickens it into a smooth, glossy coat; cooking out the roux removes the raw-flour taste. The shrimp are lightly pre-cooked so they finish tender, not rubbery, in the oven. A topping of cheese and sometimes breadcrumbs browns by the Maillard reaction under high top heat, forming the crust while the sauce beneath stays creamy. Baking in a shallow gratin dish maximises the browned surface.