White Rice 白ご飯 How to cook Rice

You can’t explain about Japanese food without referring to White Rice. Japanese eat rice in most meals, and it is the main carbohydrate in the Japanese diet. Japanese rice is soft, sticky and a little bit sweet in taste. This is good for easy of digestion and also great for making Sushi rice. You can eat rice instead of bread, potato or pasta in your meal. Choose Japonica rice which has a short and round shape. I used this which you can get at grocery stores easily. This is Japonica rice.

Wash rice. (2 cups dry rice is goodfor 2 people.) Prepare a bowl, a measure cup and a colander. 1, To get rid of dirt, rinse the rice. Make sure you strain water from the bowl ( like above picture) as you rinse the rice. 2, With your finger scramble rice lightly about 20 times without water. 3, Rinse rice again until water is clear.

Soak rice in water. ( 1 hour at room temperature.) Rice has a clear color after washing. This means inside the rice is still dry. To get good soft rice and also to make rice in a short time, the rice must be soaked to absorb water. After soaking, the rice is all white. Measure rice properly and put in a deep pan with an equal amount of water. 2 cups of dry rice became 2 ¾ cups after soaking. So you would put in the deep pan with 2 ¾ cups of water (This can vary depending on the kinds of rice used, water temperature, room temperature and humidity.)

Cook rice with cover. 1, At high heat Wait until boiled. Set a timer for 2 minutes when it starts to boil. Don’t open wait patiently even if it bubbles over. 2, Turn down the heat to medium, set a timer for 3 minutes. 3, Turn down the heat to low, set a timer for 7 minutes.

Steam 10 minutes putting kitchen paper under the cover. 1, After 7 minutes over low heat, open the cover and check inside of pan to make sure there is no water like in the above picture. ※ If water is left, cook 1 minutes more at low heat and check again. 2, When there is no water left, turn heat off, put kitchen papers under the cover and set a timer for 10 minutes. This makes rice softer. Scramble rice from the bottom. Scramble immediately from the bottom of the pan. To store, put cooked rice in a freezer bag and keep in the freezer. To reheat frozen rice microwave for 3 ½ minutes on a microwavable plate. This is traditional Japanese rice.