How to cook Japanese Rice (thank you Maki!)
Ok, I promised a thorough explication on how to prepare, conserve/store and eat Japanese rice best.
There are basically two types of Japanese rice. One type is the normal rice used in daily cooking for savory dishes. The second type is called mochigome and is used for sweet rice cakes and mochi, due to its stickiness.
Once you’ve chosen the right type of rice (and I doubt that you’ll have much choice in the store you’ll buy your rice at so I’ll forgo the advice on a certain brand) make sure to store it in tightly secured containers in a cool place.
Now on to the equipment needed for preparing Japanese rice!
- If you’ve never given this a thought before, you might consider purchasing a rice cooker. This might seem like something totally fancy and accessory to you but for me it has become indispensable since the very first week I bought it and not only because I like to cook Japanese. What’s great about rice cookers is that they don’t do ONLY rice cooking. When you get a rice cooker you can get a steamer/warmer at the same time meaning that you can prepare any type of rice (even western style), steam vegetables or keep them warm. Potatoes, eggs and carrots… basically anything that accompanies or composes a meal can be dropped into the rice cooker and you’re done. You can prepare whole meals with a rice cooker (watch out for more posts about this soon).
Cooking rice (especially Japanese rice) without a rice cooker is fairly complicated and mostly you’ll struggle to get it just right. (before my rice was far from perfect) But with this nice little helper you just drop the rice inside and you can prepare the rest of your meal while the cooker does all the work for you. You can even steam vegetables at the same time which preserves vitamines and is good for the health. Also a rice cooker doesn’t have to be pricey, I’ve found this one on Amazon which resembles the one that I have and you’ll get a rice spatula, a measuring cup and steaming container along with the cooker when you order.
- A rice spatula and a measuring cup are also very important utensils. The amount of water you add to the rice in proportion to the rice you want to cook must be measured carefully. Furthermore the rice spatula will help you get the cooked rice out of the rice cooker, without sticking and squeeshing the rice. Rice spatulas can be plastic or wooden. I prefer the plastic ones because they don’t take on any weird odors over time. But it’s all up to you.
2 piece Plastic Rice Spatula - Other than that you’ll need a large bowl or any other container that allows you to wash rice in. Also if you don’t have a rice cooker, a regular pan/casserole/pot will do.
Now comes the real fun, your very first Japanese cooking lesson!
No don’t worry, it won’t be me holding it because I’m quite happy to give credits to the wonderful blog that taught me how to properly prepare rice. On I Was Just Really Very Hungry, Maki will show you how to cook rice with or without a rice cooker. It’s a great step by step guide (yes even the washing requires some training) that goes through all details and leaves nothing out, here you go:
Japanese Basics: Plain Rice / Sushi Rice
Yes the post also describes how to make Sushi rice, but I’ll get to that in another post. For now make sure to follow the instructions precisely. When you are done and when the rice is looking at you all deliciously, you might wonder what else you can do now that you’ve got real Japanese rice. Don’t worry, there is a great deal of things you can do with cooked rice, for example Onigiri (Rice Balls), Sushi, rice omelet, fried rice or rice soup. Mouth watering already? Please be sure to check back soon for more recipes 
