rice

Botamochi for spring, Ohagi for fall: Sweet Japanese rice and bean cakes

maki — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:31:05 +0200

[From the archives: Today (September 23rd) is the first day of the fall o-higan (お彼岸), when ohagi or botamochi are offered to ones ancestors, as well as oneself! My mother and my grandmother always made these at home around this time of year - I love their not-too-sweet stickiness. O-higan ends on the 26th, so if you like wagashi, why not give these a try? Originally published March 2007.]

The seven days centered around the bi-annual days of the vernal equinox is a Buddhist festival period known as higan (or o-higan for the honorific term) in Japan. The fall (autumn) higan is aki no higan, and the spring higan is haru no higan. Since the day of the spring equinox is March 21, we’re about to enter the haru no ohigan period.

During haru no higan, a sweet confection called botamochi is eaten. The mochi part means sticky, pounded rice, and the bota part comes from botan, or the tree peony. Botamochi is supposed to ressemble a tree peony flower.

During the autumn equinox (aki no higan or simply (o)higan)) period, a very similar confection called ohagi is eaten. This is supposed to look like a hagi or bush clover flower (Latin: Lespedeza thunbergii). Botamochi and o-hagi look the same to me, even though a hagi flower looks nothing like a tree peony flower, but the good old ancestors were probably a lot more imaginative than I am.

Botamochi and o-hagi are made of sticky rice and sweet tsubuan, ‘chunky-style’ sweet azuki bean paste. They are a bit fiddly to make but not difficult, especially if you use one of my favorite cooking helpers, plastic cling film. Since these are best eaten freshly made, it’s well worth the effort to make them at home if you like bean-based Japanese sweets. You can adjust the amount of sugar in the tsubuan to your taste. Here I have made three variations: coated with black sesame seeds; coated with kinako (toasted soy bean powder); and the most traditional form with the rice cake wrapped in a layer of the tsubuan.

Botamochi or Ohagi: Sweet Japanese rice and bean cakes

This makes quite a lot of botamochi/ohagi about 2 inches / 5 cm or so long. If this is too much, halve the ingredients. They also freeze very well - see Notes below.

By ‘cup’ here I mean the measuring cup that comes with a rice cooker, which has a capacity of 180ml. As long as you keep the same proportions you can use larger (e.g. American size, which is about 220ml) cups too.

For the mochi part:

1 cup regular white uruchimai or Japanese / japonica rice (the kind used for sushi and so on)
2 cups white mochimai or sweet rice (see Looking at Rice if you’re confused about which rice is which. You cannot substitute any other kinds of rice for this.)
About 2 cups of water (or the amount indicated for your rice cooker)

The tsuban:

1 batch of tsubuan

The kurogoma or black sesame coating:

3-4 Tbs. black sesame seeds
1 Tbs. superfine white sugar
pinch of salt

The kinako coating:

2-3 Tbs. kinako (available at Japanese groceries and some healthfood stores)
1 Tbs. superfine white sugar
pinch of salt
Extra water for forming the dumplings

Equipment needed:

rice cooker (you can cook the rice in a pot, but a rice cooker is much easier)
plastic wrap / cling film (however you call it in your neck of the woods)

The day before, wash the rice well, and wash and sort the azuki beans. Soak the azuki beans and the rice (separately) in enough water to cover, overnight or at least 8 hours. Drain well.

Make the tsubuan following these directions.

Cook the rice in a rice cooker in the normal way, with the indicated amount of water for 3 cups of regular rice.

In the meantime, toast the sesame seeds in a small frying pan until the seeds begin to pop. Remove from the pan into another bowl and mix well with the sugar and salt.

Mix together the kinako and the sugar and salt in another bowl.

While the rice is still warm not not burning hot anymore, put it in a large ziplock plastic bag. Close the zip, pushing out as much air as possible. Pound the rice and squeeze it and knead it until it’s sort of half-crushed (it’s mostly paste but you can still see some rice grains in there). This state is called hantsuki, or half-beaten, mochi. Let cool a bit in the bag.

Divide the mochi into 24 or so equal pieces.

To make the kinako-coated dumpling: flatten a piece of mochi on a sheet of plastic wrap, trying to make the edges a bit thinner than the middle, with moistened fingers. Put a teaspoonful or so of tsubuan in the middle. Carefully gather up the mochi around the filling (just like you’d do with onigiri) to form a sort of oval-shaped ball, completely enclosing the tsubuan filling. (This oval shape is called tawara-gata, or rice bale shape.) Roll the dumpling well in the kinako-mix. You may need to roll it 2 or 3 times since the kinako tends to sink in to the rice.

Make the sesame coated dumplings in the same way. To make the sesame stick better you may need to lightly moisten the surface of the dumpling.

To make the tsubuan-coated dumplings, make a small oval-shaped ball with the mochi. Spread some tsubuan on a piece of plastic wrap, and gather up the plastic to make a ball. If the dumpling looks funny you can adjust it a bit after unwrapping it from the plastic wrap.

Serve with green tea, preferably while gazing at some beautiful spring (or fall) scenery.

Notes

In the photo at the top, I’ve presented the botamochi in a lacqured black wooden box. In the second picture the dumplings are on a black ceramic plate. Black seems to suit these better than white.

The traditional way of making this half-beaten mochi is to grind it in a suribachi, but the pounding on the plastic bag method is much easier, requires no cleanup and lets out your aggressions. (Web developers: imagine it’s a difficult client’s face and punch away.)

These do not keep well in the refrigerator since the rice hardens up, so keep in a cool place until it’s time to eat them. They can be frozen successfully though: just wrap them individually in plastic wrap, and defrost at room temperature or nuke in the microwave for about a minute per dumpling (depending on the wattage of your microwave).

I find that adding a bit more salt to the tsubuan for this makes the dumplings tastier.

Rice defines me as a Japanese person

maki — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:22:16 +0200

2 or 3 times a year, my mother sends me a big care package from Japan. She sends it by seamail, which takes forever, but that’s because she always includes a bag of rice.

Whenever a bag of rice arrives from my mother, I carefully open the bag and make a small batch, washed and simply cooked in a rice cooker. Plain and unadorned. Just to confirm that yes, it was worth the hassle it causes to my mother, not to mention the debt I owe to her for it. And every time, I know, again, that it was.

The rice she sent is koshihikari from a small organic farm in Ishikawa prefecture. The bag is marked by hand with the date the rice was polished. The grains are clear white and translucent. When cooked, each grain is plump, separate yet clings delicately to its neighbors when scooped up onto chopsticks.

I’m often asked what ingredients and supplies one needs to get to cook Japanese dishes, and what are the keys to Japanese cooking and so on. I try to answer as well as I can. But I think I fail to get through this point: Rice is the key to Japanese food. It has to be the right kind of rice, and it has to be good rice.

The older I get, the more convinced I am that we are defined by the type of carbohydrate we fall back on. I like all kinds of starches - bread, pasta, dumplings, all kinds of grains, all kinds of rice - but the one I go back to, the one that makes me most comfortable, is Japonica rice. Give me a bowl of rice, and maybe some pickles or umeboshi, and I’m happy.

For the Guy, it’s bread, no question; a rough country-type of bread (halbwiess is a favorite, as is pain paillaisse, a twisted mixed grain sourdough bread). Give him a loaf of bread, some cheese and maybe a little dried cured meat, and he’s happy.

What’s your fall-back carb? Does it define you in any way?

How to cook bamboo shoots (takenoko)

maki — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:22:40 +0200

There are two Japanese vegetables that I can’t get fresh here that I miss very much. One is burdock root or gobo; the other is bamboo shoot or takenoko (竹の子 or 筍）. Bamboo shoots are very much a spring-only vegetable, much like asparagus, so around this time of year I always get a craving for the crunch and subtle flavor.

While fresh bamboo shoots haven’t made their appearance at markets and stores in Zürich, it is possible to buy precooked bamboo shoots. (And the truth is, most Japanese people nowadays use convenient precooked bamboo shoots anyway. Fresh bamboo shoots start to go hard and somewhat bitter as soon as they are dug up.)

An added bonus: boiled bamboo shoots are so low in calories that you can put them on your ‘eat as much as I want’ list. 100 grams has about 12 calories and 1 gram of fiber.

Cooking fresh bamboo shoots

If you’re lucky enough to live in an area where you can get fresh bamboo shoots, here’s how to cook them.

Select bamboo shoots that are heavy and firm, with a lively looking outer skin. (Only about 2 or 3 kinds of bamboo varieties produce edible shoots, and they are all quite large and come from fairly old bamboos. You could experiment with bamboo shoots from your garden, but you do so at your own risk.)
Cut off the pointy end and the root end.
Put in a pot with enough white rinsing water when you wash rice to cover. (Alternatively you can put in some rice bran, wrapped in a cheesecloth.) Bring to a boil, and simmer for about an hour or more, until it is tender enough to poke a skewer through. (Some suggest putting a couple of chili peppers in the simmering water.)
Let cool in the water; if you try to peel it while it’s still hot, the shoot may split.
The outer skin will peel off easily. You can then proceed and use the bamboo shoot in various dishes.

Using pre-cooked vacuum packed bamboo shoots

You can get canned bamboo shoots, but I much prefer the vacuum packed kind. They are a pale shadow of freshly cooked bamboo shoots, but they haave to do. They come packed in a little water.

Essentially they have been cooked in the manner described above, and are ready to use. You may see some white gritty stuff in the inner folds - that’s just rice residue. Rinse it out in water.

Once you’ve opened a vacuum packed bamboo shoot, try to use it up right away.

Recipe: Takenoko Gohan (Bamboo shoot rice)

Takenoko gohan is a quintessential spring dish. The rice is subtly perfumed by the bamboo shoot, which retains its crunchy texture. This can really make me homesick for Japan.

This is a method to cook it in a rice cooker. This is a vegan dish.

3 rice cooker cups (1 cup = 180ml) rice (white rice is traditional, but you could use sprouted brown rice. If using regular brown rice, soak it overnight.)
3 dried shiitake mushrooms, pre-soaked until soft
1/2 small to medium cooked bamboo shoot (about 4 oz / 120g)
1 Tbs. sake
1 Tbs. mirin
1 Tbs. soy sauce
1/2 to 1 tsp. salt (less salt if you intend to eat this as part of a Japanese meal with other salty things; more if this is served as a side-dish Western style)
The soaking liquid from the shiitake, plus added water if needed

Wash the rice and drain in a sieve.

Drain off the dried shiitake, reserving the soaking liquid. Add to the rice in the rice cooker, and top up with water if needed to bring it up to the 3-cup level mark. Add the sake, mirin, soy sauce and salt. Let the rice soak for at least 30 minutes. (Overnight if you’re using regular brown rice.)

In the meantime, chop up the shiitake and cut the bamboo shoot half into bitesize pieces. Add to the rice, and cook using regular cooking settings.

Let rest for at least 10 minutes after cooking, and them fluff up to mix.

Recipe: Bamboo shoot and snap pea stir fry with bacon

The other half of the bamboo shoot can be used in a stir-fry or a miso soup. Here’s a simple stir fry that uses another spring vegetable, snap peas. The bacon makes it not very vegetarian. You can leave it out for a vegan version.

1/2 small to medium cooked bamboo shoot (about 4 oz / 120g), sliced
2 cups snap peas, de-veined if needed and trimmed
2 slices bacon, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup white parts of spring or green onions sliced
1 Tbs. oil
1 Tbs. soy sauce
1/2 tsp. salt
pepper
a few drops of chili oil Head up the oil in a wok. Add the bacon and cook until just about crisp. Add the onion, stir fry a couple of minutes. Add snap peas and stir fry until bright green and crisp-tender. Add bamboo shoots, soy sauce and salt and pepper, and the chili oil, and take off the heat.

Shell-shaped sushi (Hamaguri-zushi) for Girls' Festival

maki — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:52:50 +0100

From the archives, originally posted March 2, 2007: I’ll be making these pretty egg-wrapped sushi again for hinamatsuri (Girl’s Festival) on Monday, March 3rd. The pale yellow and pink colors are like a harbinger of spring for me, besides being very girly. As delicate as they look, they are pretty easy to make. I have revised the recipe in minor ways. It’s a great way to use usuyaki tamago. Enjoy!

Tomorrow, March 3rd, is Momo no sekku or Peach Day in Japan. Peach blossoms usually start blooming around this time, signifying the coming of spring. It’s also the day for hina matsuri, the Doll Festival or Girls’ Festival. Households with daughters display hina ningyo-, traditional dolls that represent a princess’s wedding procession. This is because the ultimate happiness expected for a girl was for her to make a fruitful and comfortable marriage. Nowadays girls may be expected to do other things besides become happy wives, but on this day at least traditions still hold strong.

In Japan there is a long standing stereotype that girls and women like very sweet things, while manly men like less sweet and bitter things. So, for Hina Matsuri the guests are served sweet things like amazake (a very thick non-alcoholic hot drink made from the lees of sake, rather like eggnog in color and cloying sweetness), hishimochi (tri-colored mochi cake) and okoshi (colored sweetened puffed rice). Although there were three girls in our house, none of us liked amazake at all. However, my mother often made some kind of sushi for Hina Matsuri, which we really loved.

Here are two kinds of very pretty, girlie sushi in feminine pink, yellow and white with a touch of green. These colors fit the theme of Hina Matsuri perfectly: the traditional hishimochi is colored white, pink (or light red) and green.

The first is hamaguri-zushi or clam sushi, pictured here. It’s supposed to look like a clam, but to me it looks just as much like a little yellow flower. (Hamaguri are in season in March in Japan.) It can be filled with any kind of sushi rice, but here I have made a slightly pink-tinged sushi rice with lemony smoked salmon, mitsuba or flat-leaf parsley and white sesame seeds, wrapped in a usuyaki tamago or thin omelette. It’s related to chakin-zushi, where the omelette is wrapped in a bag shape and tied, but slightly less fiddly since all you have to do is fold it into quarters.

Besides making a very pretty spring party dish (for an appetizer maybe, or as part of a buffet), these work very well as bento items too since the sushi rice has good keeping qualities, and the omelette keeps the rice from drying out. Plus you can just grab them with your hands to eat.

The second sushi is smoked salmon temari zushi - the recipe is here.

March 3rd, is Momo no sekku or Peach Day in Japan. Peach blossoms usually start blooming around this time, signifying the coming of spring. It’s also the day for hina matsuri, the Doll Festival or Girls’ Festival. Households with daughters display hina ningyo-, traditional dolls that represent a princess’s wedding procession. This is because the ultimate happiness expected for a girl was for her to make a fruitful and comfortable marriage. Nowadays girls may be expected to do other things besides become happy wives, but on this day at least traditions still hold strong.

The second sushi is smoked salmon temari zushi - the recipe is here.

Hamaguri-zushi (clam sushi) or yellow flower sushi

The rice:

4 cups of cooked plain white rice cooked with dashi stock
1/4 cup plum vinegar or raspberry vinegar
1 1/2 Tbs. sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
About 60g/2 oz smoked salmon, chopped up into pieces
2 tsp. lemon juice
1 Tbs. toasted white sesame seeds
2 Tbs. chopped mitsuba or flatleaf parsley leaves

The wrapping: * usuyaki tamago using 6 eggs

Garnish:

Salmon eggs (aka salmon caviar) or ikura (which are salmon eggs marinated in a soy sauce mix)

Equipment:

Small non-stick frying pan
Rice cooker (will make your life a lot easier)
A heat-resistant brush for brushing the oil onto the pan, or a wad of paper towel
Spatula to turn the omelette
Rice paddle or spatula for mixing the rice

Make the usuyaki tamago. Dissolve the cornstarch in the water. Beat the eggs lightly with a fork or chopsticks (not a whisk or it will become too bubbly) with the sugar, salt and the cornstarch/water.

Heat the small frying pan over a medium-low heat. Brush lightly with oil. Put about 1/8th cup or 3 tablespoons of the egg mixture in the pan, swirl carefully so it coats the bottom of the pan but doesn’t slosh up the sides. Hint: use the same scoop or spoon to measure equal amounts of the egg - I use a 1/4 cup measure, half filled.

Cook just until the top is barely set, then carefully pick up the omelette with the spatula and flip over. Cook for about 10 seconds just until it’s set, then flip out of the pan. The omelettes should be yellow, and not browned.

Repeat for the rest of the egg. You should end up with about 12 to 14 omelettes.

The omelettes can be made the day before and kept covered with plastic in the fridge.

Make the sushi rice the day you plan to serve it. Cook the rice following the basic instructions. Turn the hot rice out into a bowl and break up lightly with the spatula. The sushi vinegar in this case is made with a red colored vinegar, either plum or raspberry (don’t worry, this won’t make the rice taste weird). Mix together the vinegar, sugar and salt in a pan and heat until the sugar and salt are dissolved. Pour over the rice, and mix/fluff the rice until it’s all a uniform pale pink. Let cool to room temperature.

In the meantime, sprinkle the chopped up smoked salmon with the lemon juice, and let sit for at least 10 to 15 minutes.

Fold the sesame seeds, salmon, and mitsuba or parsley into the rice, trying not to smoosh the rice grains too much. Here is how the rice looks. You can just make this into small rice balls and serve too.

Assembly

Divide the rice into as many portions as you have omelettes. Put the portioned rice on one quarter of one of the omelettes.

Fold the omelette in half, then into quarters.

Turn over so the rice part is on top (the weight of the rice helps to keep it stable). Squeeze the sides a bit so the insides can be seen.

Garnish with a few salmon eggs. This is optional but makes it really pretty. You can also sprinkle a bit of mitsuba or parsley instead.

Note that you do not need dipping soy sauce for this, since the sushi itself is already flavored quite well.

Zakkokumai: Rice with seeds and grains and bits

maki — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:19:29 +0100

[Update:] There seems to be some confusion about how zakkokumai is cooked and looks like, so I’ve added some more photos and such.

Rice is such an integral part of a Japanese meal, that the word for ‘meal’ (gohan, ご飯) also means rice. White rice is the norm, both for taste and for various cultural reasons. But as you probably know, white rice (hakumai, 白米） is rice that has been stripped of most of its nutrients, leaving just the starch.

Brown rice (genmai) is the obvious healthier alternative. But brown rice can take some time to cook, what with the soaking and so on that’s needed, and some people simply don’t like the taste or texture.

In recent years, something called zakkokumai (雑穀米）has become increasingly popular in Japan. Zakkoku just means “mixed grains”, and mai is rice. Another name for essentially the same thing is kokumotsu gohan （穀物ご飯）. It’s rice that has a small amount of various grains and seeds mixed into it prior to cooking. You can then cook the rice in a rice cooker in the normal way. The grains and seeds add a mix of nutrients and fiber, and a little flavor too.

Zakkoku or kokumotsu mixes are sold in convenient packets. Here are two kinds; each pack is meant to be used for 2 to 3 cups (rice cooker cups) of white rice. You simply throw in the contents after you’ve washed the rice and put in the water for cooking.

The light colored one contains sprouted brown rice, pressed barley, hatomugi (Job’s Tears), millet (uruchi hie), and white sesame seeds. The package touts the fact that the whiteness of the rice is maintained, even after you mix in the zakkoku.

The second one has black beans (kuromame), azuki beans, mung beans, pressed barley, black rice (kokumai), another kind of millet (mochikibi), yet another kind of millet (mochi hie) and amaranth. It colors the rice when cooked a slight reddish-purple.

The good news is, these zakkoku packs are now more available outside of Japan. I’ve seen one kind at my local Japanese grocery, Nishi’s, and and Japan Centre carries them too (link to the ‘white’ kind, and another kind here.) The bad news is that for those of us buying these kinds of things overseas, they are pretty expensive.

If you’re interested in trying out zakkoku-mai, look for these convenient packs at your favorite Japanese grocery store. If you can’t find them though, try making your own mix of various grains and seeds, and add about a tablespoon per cup of rice.

Here’s a mix that I can easily assemble with ingredients from a regular supermarket and health food store:

Black beans
Azuki beans (but beans may need to be pre-soaked)
Lentils
Millet
Quinoa
Barley
Sesame seeds
Steel cut oats
Amaranth

At the very least, it’s an interesting alternative to brown rice.

(A sidenote: I’m always reluctant to talk about Japanese ingredients unless it’s actually available outside of Japan. Zakkoku-mai mixes weren’t available until fairly recently, but now they are, so here they are.)

Update: Cooking zakkokumai, with photos

To clarify some confusion about exactly how a zakkoku-mai mix work, here are some photos of it being cooked.

After washing 2 rice-cooker cups of rice, I added a packet of zakkokumai mix (this is the one with beans and things in it, described above) to the rice cooker with the water. There are about 2 tablespoons of mix in a packet.

Here’s how it looks after it’s been cooked. I used the regular white rice setting, not brown rice or anything else! The mix is sort of clumped up in one corner, so I fluff up the rice to distribute things evenly.

Here’s how a bowl of cooked zakkokumai looks like. This mix puts a reddish color cast on the rice because it contains azuki beans and black rice, but the ‘white’ kind of mix puts no color on the rice.

You may not care what color your rice is. But it may matter a lot if you happen to have older Japanese people to feed, who may have an aversion to any kind of rice that isn’t white. (My stepfather is like that, and to a lesser extent my father too. It all has to do with the era in which they grew up, when white rice was highly desirable and any deviation from it brought back bad memories of rationing and food shortages during and after the war, when things like millet were used as rice substitutes. Ironic that now these formerly undesirable rice substitutes are seen as health foods!)

Here’s how the cooked rice looks close up.

It doesn’t taste significantly different from plain white rice, though there is some texture interest. There’s no need to devise special meals to eat it with either. We actually at this rice last night with curry.

In any case I hope the photos make the use of zakkokumai a bit clearer.

Brown rice and green tea porridge (genmai chagayu)

maki — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:16:33 +0100

A traditional custom in Japan is to eat nanakusa gayu, or seven greens rice porridge, after the New Year’s feasting period, to rest the stomach and bring the body back into balance. At any time of the year, kayu or okayu are eaten when the body is weakened by sickness, fatigue or overeating.

Chagayu or tea rice porridge is a speciality of the ancient city of Nara and the surrounding area. (Nara was briefly the capital of Japan in the 8th century A.D., and is one of the most historical cities in the country). Chagayu is usually made with white rice, but I used brown rice (genmai) instead, plus a small amount of firm green puy lentils from France. The lentils are not traditional, but I like the contrasting texture.

This has been my breakfast for about a week now. It’s not in the same category as eggs and bacon or a stack of pancakes, but I find my body needs something like this sometimes to bring it back into balance. It’s filling and warming, yet feels very cleansing to the body. A cup of this has less than 100 calories, and is high in fiber.

The fragrance of the tea is wonderful as you inhale the warm vapors rising up from the bowl.

This is not the same thing as ochazuke by the way, since the rice is cooked with tea.

Brown rice and tea porridge with green lentils (renzu mame iri genmai chagayu)

This amount makes 5-6 cups of kayu. Just store in the refrigerator and heat up in the morning.

1 cup (220ml) short grain brown rice
1/4 cup firm green or brown lentils; puy lentils are best. Don’t use red lentils, which will turn into mush. You can omit this if you like.
3 green tea bags - use bancha, kukicha or ho-ji cha. No need to use expensive tea here. (In Nara they usually use bancha.) If you don’t have tea bags, use about 1 heaping tablespoonful of green tea in a tea ball or a piece of cheesecloth. (Hint: tea bags are the easiest!)
1/2 teaspoon salt
Water

Rinse the brown rice in cold water. Put in a heavy pan with 6 cups of water and the salt. Bring up to a boil, then lower the heat to low (it should barely simmer) and add the tea bags and lentils. Put on a lid and let slowly simmer for about an hour or more. (You can do this in a slow cooker.) Stir occasionally.

Take out the tea bags. If the consistency seems too watery to you, turn up the heat a tiny bit and simmer with the lid off, to allow some of the water to evaporate.

You can eat this as is, for a very subtly flavored porridge. You may want to add something salty to it like umeboshi (as pictured), furikake (maybe a homemade one), gomashio (sesame seed and salt), or just some plain sea salt.

Notes

It’s more traditional to brew the tea first, cool it then cool the rice in the tea. I find that just throwing in the tea bags is easier (and it doesn’t get bitter).

Leftover kayu stored in the refrigerator will get a little gluey. If it thickens up too much, add a little bit of water before heating up.

You could also add some greens to it and simmer a little bit more - try spinach, komatsuna, turnip greens, and so on. (Actually, one of the tastier toppings is well drained and crumbled bacon…and it doesn’t make it that unhealthy. :))

(Don’t forget to cast your vote in the chicken poll if you haven’t done so already.)

Answering some rice cooker questions

maki — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 17:18:06 +0100

A few readers have emailed me recently about rice cookers by coincidence. So I thought I would put my answers here for everyone’s benefit.

Q. What size of rice cooker is right for me?

A single portion of rice ranges from 1/2 to 1 cup. So, if you are a single person or a couple you don’t need a huge rice cooker unless you are the social type who regularly has parties. The smallest capacity I’ve seen sold outside of Japan (where they do sell 2-cup or even 1-cup cookers) is 3 cups.

However, the newer rice cookers from good manufacturers like Zojirushi, Panasonic, Mitsubishi and so on handle small amounts of rice in their big-capacity rice cookers. For example this 10 cup capacity Zojirushi model can cook 1 cup as well as 10 cups. So, the size issue may come down more to budget and how much countertop space you can give it.

Q. Do I really need to spend so much on a rice cooker?

My general philosophy is this: If you think you’ll use it regularly, it’s worth spending a bit more for any appliance. The if you’ll use it regularly part is critical though. Will you be making rice at least 1 or 2 times a week, every week? Then a rice cooker is worth getting. And there’s such a world of difference between a good rice cooker and a cheap one. The most important one is durability - my older Zojirushi rice cooker is 20 years or so old and still working fine. The more durable an appliance is, the less you’re going to be adding crap needlessly to your local landfill. And you’ll save money in the long run.

(Incidentally, I’m not being unfairly biased by always recommending Japanese rice cooker manufacturers like Zojirushi. For one thing, everyone in my family has had great experiences with them. For another - Japanese people eat a lot of rice and they are quite particular about how their rice cookers perform!)

Q. Should I get a rice cooker that can cook brown rice, or other types of rice?

Again, if you think you will be cooking other types of grains or rice regularly, definitely yes.

Q. What features should I look for?

In order of importance:

A timer! Most rice cookers have a timer function, but it’s really handy to have. You can wash the rice the night before to have it freshly cooked in the morning, or wash it in the morning so you can come back to fresh cooked rice, etc.
Ease of use! You should be able to set it without thinking once you’ve read through the manual.
A durable, non-stick inner container is good to have, so that you can wash the rice in the container instead of having to bother with another bowl, etc.
An audible beeper, so you know when the rice is done.
Settings for cooking different kinds of rice or grains.
Sophisticated electronics that ensure your rice is cooked well (they are called Micom or Neuro-fuzzy or something like that usually)
Keep-warm feature. I have to say that I usually switch off the keep-warm as soon as the rice is done, because I think it makes the rice taste worse and worse. You should never use keep-warm for whole grains, including brown rice, because it will start to get odd fairly fast.

Q. I got a rice cooker but my rice still doesn’t taste right.

If you’re cooking Japanese style rice, are you sure you got the right kind? (See Looking at Rice.) Are you washing it correctly? (See How to wash and prepare rice.) You can’t skip the washing part and expect to get rice that’s as good as you can get at your favorite Japanese restaurant. (And to be picky, a lot of Japanese restaurants don’t wash their rice well enough for me, or use the evil ‘no-wash rice’ (musenmai). But that’s another story.)

Can I use a rice cooker for cooking other things?

You sure can. You have to keep in mind that a rice cooker is designed to start cooking at a low heat, gradually increasingly the heat, ending at a high heat. And it’s also fairly (in some models completely) sealed, so you get a moist steam heat. So, things that can be cooked in that type of environment will fit. There are several books about rice cooker cooking in Japan, and All About (the Japanese equivalent of About.com) has a whole section devoted to the subject. There are some rice cooker books in English too, like this one. I can’t vouch for any of the books, but I’ve tried some of the recipes on All About and they are rather fun.

Q. Do I need a rice cooker at all?

Our ancestors didn’t have cute beepy electric cookers, so obviously it is possible to cook rice properly without one.

I have a little confession actually - recently, I’ve been cooking rice more and more in anything but my rice cooker. I still rely on it when I’m in a hurry. And when someone else is making dinner, I can just ask them to ‘do the rice’ and as long as it’s using the rice cooker, everything is ok.

But I’ve found that the best tasting rice really is made in a regular, heavy pot, or in a pressure cooker. That’s the only way I cook brown rice these days. However, it takes some patience and practice to cook rice without the handy set-it-and-forget-it-ness of a rice cooker. I never used to be able to cook rice properly without a cooker - the rice would always turn into mush, or be hard and raw. Even now, after years of fairly concentrated practice, I occasionally turn out a pot of inedible goo.

So for a busy person who cooks a lot of rice or other grains, I think a rice cooker is a great appliance to have. It’s just one less thing to think about after all.

Addendum 1: About the rice cooker cup

One very important thing to keep in mind if you purchase a rice cooker is that you should always use the little measuring cup that comes with it. The capacity of the cup is usually 180ml, which is less than a Japanese one cup (200ml) or an American one cup (220ml). If you do lose that cup though, try measuring 180ml with a regular measuring cup.

Addendum 2: Zojirushi and Tiger rice cookers in Europe

Europe-based readers haven’t had a lot of luck finding Japanese rice cookers, barring a trip to Japan. I’ve spotted this fairly new Zojirushi Rizo model on the web site of a German/Japanese mailorder store, Ja-Mart:

It’s a 3-cup capacity model that cooks Japanese style rice, risotto, and also does ‘steam cooking’. It comes in yellow, white and stainless steel, and it’s available from Ja-Mart.de. The price for the yellow and white models is €186, which for a Japanese rice cooker in Europe is fairly reasonable. The site is in Japanese and German only, but they do deliver to several European countries, so try emailing them at customer.service at ja-mart dot de. (Note for people in Switzerland: they do ship here, even though Switzerland doesn’t appear in their drop-down menu.)

If you’re in the U.S. and fall in love with the cutie, you can get it from Amazon.

(Update on JA-Mart: They now carry a 1 to 10-cup capacity IH (Induction Heating) rice cooker from Tiger, another very good brand.)

Addendum 3: UK source for Zojirushi rice cookers

[Updated September 18 2008:]

I received an email from Donna and Neil of Yum Asia, who currently sell two models of Zojirushi Fuzzy Logic rice cookers in the UK. They are 220-240v and have three-pin UK plugs (an adapter plug would be needed for continental Europe). Check them out!

Japanese-style vegan mushroom rice: Kinoko no takikomi gohan revisited

maki — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 19:27:00 +0100

The very first full recipe I posted on Just Hungry almost 4 years ago was Mushroom Rice (kinoko no takikomi gohan), and it still gets a lot of visits and comments, even though there’s no photo to whet the reader’s appetite or anything.

The original recipe called for traditional dashi stock made from bonito (fish) flakes, and suggested adding chicken and other things. This version is a lot simpler to assemble and it’s all vegan, but it’s just as tasty. And it comes with a photo! (My early photos on the site are pretty awful. I like to think I’ve learned a little since then.) I am using this in an upcoming bento, but it’s good for regular dinner too, so it’s posted here. It’s actually the best when it’s freshly made - the aroma of the mushrooms fills the kitchen, quite irresistible if you love mushrooms as I do. It is a very autumn (fall) kind of dish.

I think that this dish reflects my changing tastes and eating habits too, not to mention how I approach writing for Just Hungry, too. 4 years ago, I wasn’t that worried about health issues or anything of that nature in regards to food. Now, I am rather proud that I have a tasty dish that is sugar-free, gluten-free (if you use a gluten-free soy sauce), and vegan! I feel a bit trendy.

(The original recipe is not that unhealthy or anything, but it does have a bit of meat, sugar, and so on.)

Vegan mushroom rice (kinoko no takikomi gohan)

2 large dried shiitake mushrooms
1 piece kombu seaweed (optional), left whole (6 inches / 15 cm or so)
2 cups white Japonica rice (sushi rice)
1 piece (about 2 cm / 1 inch long) of fresh ginger, finely chopped
1 cup sliced or shredded mixed mushrooms - fresh shiitake, morels, chantarelles, chestnut mushrooms, or whatever is around
1-2 Tbs. soy sauce
1 Tbs. sake

Equipment suggested: a rice cooker

Soak the dried shiitake mushrooms in plenty of water, with the piece of kombu seaweed. You can soak more than the two you’ll use in this recipe and use the others in other dishes - they will keep in the water, in the refrigerator, well covered, for a few days.

Take out the two shiitake from the soaking liquid, squeezing out the excess. Cut off the hard stem and slice up the caps. Mix together with the chopped ginger and fresh mushrooms, and sprinkle on the soy sauce and sake. Squeeze the mushrooms with your hands until the fresh ones wilt. Leave for a bit.

In the meantime, wash the rice.

Put the rice in the rice cooker bowl, and add the mushroom mix. Add enough of the mushroom soaking liquid to come up to the 2-cup level. Let the rice soak for at least an hour - set the rice cooker timer accordingly.

When the rice is done fluff up with a rice paddle. Serve right away or in bento. It freezes well too.

This makes about 5-6 cups of mixed rice (depending on how much mushrooms you put in, and what kind - maitake or chantarelles would shrink a lot more than, say, eringi (pleurotus)), enough for 2 bento rounds for two plus for dinner.

Notes

I normally use white rice for mixed rice (takikomi gohan) like this, because I think the flavors permeate the rice better than with brown rice. I don’t worry about the lack of fiber content in the rice itself, because the added ingredients usually have lots of fiber anyway.

Smoked salmon temari zushi: Ball-shaped sushi

maki — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 19:23:33 +0100

Following up on the previous recipe for shell shaped sushi, here is another kind of sushi that’s great for parties. Temari are small cloth balls made from leftover scraps of kimono fabric, and temari zushi are meant to look like these colorful toys. You can make temari zushi with any number of things, such as thinly sliced sashimi grade fish, boiled and butterflied shrimp, thinly sliced and cooked or uncooked vegetables, and even thin slices of cheese.

For these, I’ve used thinly cut slices of pale pink smoked salmon, with tiny amount of cream cheese inside, rather in the same vein as a New York Roll - quite non-traditional but it’s a great combination. The key is to make the temari zushi on the small side since they are quite rich.

As with the hamaguri-zushi, these don’t require any soy sauce for dipping.

Smoked salmon temari zushi

4 cups of cooked plain white rice cooked with dashi stock, turned into sushi rice either by following the traditional recipe on that page, or into pink sushi rice as per the instructions on the hamaguri sushi page
8 to 12 thin slices smoked salmon
Cream cheese
Finely chopped parsley for garnish

Equipment:

Tiny bowl or small teacup with about 1/3 to 1/2 cup cup capacity
Plastic cling film

The procedure for making these is the same as for Onigiri 2.0, but even easier. A small teacup is lined with plastic wrap, then a slice of salmon, and filled with rice. Everything is gathered up and squeezed in the plastic wrap, and formed into a little ball.

Line the cup or little bowl (I used a tiny glass bowl that I use for holding small amounts of ingredients and such when cooking) with plastic cling film, then a slice of smoked salmon.

Fill with sushi rice. Poke a hole in the middle and put about 1/2 teaspoon of cream cheese in there. I used a kind with olive bits in it, which makes it even more interesting.

Gather up the cling film and twist tightly, and form into a ball. Unmold and sprinkle a tiny bit of green if desired.

If you are bringing these to a picnic or something, leave the plastic wrap on. Try to keep cool until you eat it, since this amount of smoked salmon on the outside will get nastily greasy if left too warm.

Variation

The pale pink sushi rice makes a subtle yet nice contrast to regular white sushi rice. You can make little balls alternating both, for a pretty display, to serve as a side dish or as the rice part of your bento box.

Japanese Dry Curry

maki — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 11:22:03 +0100

While the standard curry dish in Japan is a kind of curry stew served on plain rice, dry curry, which is a sort of fried rice with curry flavor, is almost as popular. And unlike the stew-type of Curry Rice it’s very fast and easy to put together.

What makes it Japanese really is the use of japonica (medium-grain) rice. Dry curry made with Japanese rice makes a great obento lunch, tasty at room temperature or warmed up in the microwave. The stick-together moist quality of the rice keeps it edible where a dryer stay-apart rice like basmati might taste too dry. Dry curry also has the mixture of sweet and savory, which appears quite a lot in Japanese food, especially the kind that comes from the Kanto (Tokyo-area) region where my family is from.

Japanese style dry curry

225g / 8 oz ground beef or other ground meat, or vegetarian substitute
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 small piece fresh ginger, finely chopped
1 Tbs. tomato paste
2 Tbs. raisins
Olive or vegetable oil
1-2 Tbs (or more, depending on how hot you want it) curry powder
Salt and pepper
4-5 cups cooked Japanese rice

Optional garnishes:

1 boiled egg, finely chopped
2 Tbs. finely chopped fresh coriander or parsley

Heat a little oil in a sauté pan or wok. Sauté the onions, garlic and ginger until the onion is translucent and a bit browned.

Add the meat, and brown.

Push the meat and vegetables to one side of the pan. Put the curry powder in the empty part of the pan and stir-roast until darkened and fragrant.

Add 1/2 cup of water, raisins, and tomato paste. Simmer rapidly over high heat until the moisture is almost gone.

Add the hot rice to the pan and mix until thoroughly incorporated. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve with the garnishes on top.

Notes

If you’re bringing this as an bento lunch, be sure to let it cool to room temperature before putting it in your bento box or plastic container. Pack the boiled egg, if you’re adding it, separately, and crumble it on top of the curry rice just before eating.

Here I have used ground beef, but you can use any kind of ground meat - or, if going vegetarian, use your favorite vegetarian imitation-ground-meat. Crumbled firm tofu that’s been slowly dried out over low heat in a pan should work well too.

rice

Botamochi for spring, Ohagi for fall: Sweet Japanese rice and bean cakes

Botamochi or Ohagi: Sweet Japanese rice and bean cakes

Notes

Rice defines me as a Japanese person

How to cook bamboo shoots (takenoko)

Cooking fresh bamboo shoots

Using pre-cooked vacuum packed bamboo shoots

Recipe: Takenoko Gohan (Bamboo shoot rice)

Recipe: Bamboo shoot and snap pea stir fry with bacon

Shell-shaped sushi (Hamaguri-zushi) for Girls' Festival

Hamaguri-zushi (clam sushi) or yellow flower sushi

Assembly

Zakkokumai: Rice with seeds and grains and bits

Brown rice and green tea porridge (genmai chagayu)

Brown rice and tea porridge with green lentils (renzu mame iri genmai chagayu)

Notes

Answering some rice cooker questions

Q. What size of rice cooker is right for me?

Q. Do I really need to spend so much on a rice cooker?

Q. Should I get a rice cooker that can cook brown rice, or other types of rice?

Q. What features should I look for?

Q. I got a rice cooker but my rice still doesn’t taste right.

Can I use a rice cooker for cooking other things?

Q. Do I need a rice cooker at all?

Addendum 1: About the rice cooker cup

Addendum 2: Zojirushi and Tiger rice cookers in Europe

Addendum 3: UK source for Zojirushi rice cookers

See also

Japanese-style vegan mushroom rice: Kinoko no takikomi gohan revisited

Vegan mushroom rice (kinoko no takikomi gohan)

Notes

Smoked salmon temari zushi: Ball-shaped sushi

Smoked salmon temari zushi

Variation

Japanese Dry Curry

Japanese style dry curry

Notes

See also