HOW TO COOK JAPANESE RICE AND JAPANESE SUSHI RICE PLUS STORAGE IDEAS

Hi there

I have many friends over the years asking me how to cook Japanese rice, especially sushi rice so I have demo how to do it here. 😉

First thing first, I know it sound a little cliche but if you want really great tasting Japanese rice, you will need to get good japanese grains, but as I find sometimes the cost is a factor, I will opt for USA koshihikari or Australian short grains as well.

But my no. 1 choice is still Japanese Koshihikari, and over the years I have tried out many brands even the some china brands but the rice ended up not as pearly white and the chewiness just lost through the cooking. 🙁

So now I will stick to USA koshihikari or Japanese koshihikari which is premium short grain rice.

After getting your grains, perhaps the most important aspects is to use accurate water and also rinsing of the grains.

There is always a saying that you will need to rinse the grains but only one to couple of times to retain the nutrients, that is make sure the rice water is still murky. I am no scientist but may be its true. However when comes to Japanese rice, the key to get fluffy rice is to rinse, rinse & more rinse.

You need to rinse and press the rice using your hands until the water comes out clear. So that the starch will be washed out. As short grains hold higher starch content, you will need multiple rinse.

Only after you have rinse thoroughly then you can add in water to the optimal level. One thing which I recommend is to let the rice sit in after you have added optimal level of water for half and hour. So as to let the grains soak up some water prior to actual cooking.

But of course this step is optional giving all our busy work lives. 🙂

Japanese Rice Recipes

So to sum it all up :

1. Measure amount of rice you want and pour into a bowl
2. Pour tap water and immediately rinse it out, this is suppose to avoid the rice from absorbing any murky starchy water and leave an unpleasant taste
3. While rinsing, press onto the rice as if you are squeezing out the murky water, doing it 4-5 times and you will start to see water starting to clear up
4. Sieve the rice and pour in water to the optimal level and cook it in the rice cooker (some people swear by using distilled water to cook the rice, but I just use tap water)
5. My friend also did tell me before that the best rice is to cook with Japanese sake as there is some chemical reaction and you will get truly pearly white grains but I have yet to try it out 🙂

Oh, by the way, in case you are a little skeptical about the rinsing part just like me in the past, you might want to know that I did try out and experiment with the cooking method with my Japanese flatmates and one way is to rinse only once and cook it, and boy it was a true disaster, the whole pot of rice became so caked up that it turned into a huge rice cake which I could turn the pot over to form a big rice cake, it is even more hilarious when I have the rice scoop stuck in the middle haha.. So it is really a trial and tested formula 🙂

Now that we have gone through the Japanese rice cooking method, let’s move on to japanese sushi rice 🙂

Japanese Sushi Rice Recipes

Okay for sushi rice, you can always get the sushi premix from supermarket, it will do the job wonderfully but if you want to save a bit of money and you have apple cider or white vinegar (white only), salt and sugar in your pantry, it will do the same trick.

I personally prefer apple cider as it is not as tart as white vinegar, and a small bottle can last me ages.

Ratio is :

• 3 cups of rice (prior cooking)
• 1 tablespoon of apple cider
• 1 teaspoon of sugar
• 1 pinch of salt
• 

Directions :

1. Mix sugar and salt in a bowl and pour vinegar over it and let it stay for 5 mins so the sugar can dissolve.
2. Mix the solution gradually and slowly drizzle lightly into the cooked rice until you find your preferred tartness and the fragrant of the sushi rice.
3. Cool the rice thoroughly by fanning it before consuming, if not your seaweed will curled up in no time once you scoop the rice over it.

Prepare the rest of your toppings and enjoy! 🙂

Storage

If you stay alone or find it troublesome to cook rice everytime, you can also cook one weeks portion and then apportion into 7 packs buy wrapping glad wraps around it and all you will need is just a microwave to heat it up. Always try to wrap the rice up within 2 hours after cooking so that the rice quality remains. 🙂

Happy Cooking!

RECIPES : JAPANESE RICE AND JAPANESE SUSHI RICE PLUS STORAGE IDEAS

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Cheers,

Dawn