Tutorial: Perfect Rice Forever, or How to Cook Perfect Long-Grain Rice

January 22nd, 2010, photos, tutorial, Janaki, 1 Comments

There are plenty of good tutorials out there about how to cook various types of rice, if one looks. Trouble is, a lot of them are based on your already having a rice cooker. If you don’t have one (you poor person, you), a paragraph or two might be added about how to cook rice on the stovetop, or possibly in the microwave. Unfortunately, they’re usually not nearly as detailed as the ones about how to do it in a rice cooker.

So what are you meant to do if you don’t have a rice cooker? While I’ve used one when cooking at restaurants, I’ve never had one at home. I don’t cook rice every day, but I do cook it often enough that I buy it in 25 or 50 pound bags of our most used kind (as mentioned previously, I have several types of rice on hand at any given time) and have an airtight wheeled bin for it in my kitchen.

Follow the jump for exactly how to cook perfect long-grain rice (including jasmine and basmati) on your stovetop. In a covered pot. With water. It doesn’t get much simpler than this.

(more…)

Year of the Bento: Bento No. 3: Omuraisu (Japanese Omelette Rice)

January 21st, 2010, lunch, photos, year of the bento, Janaki, 2 Comments

Omuraisu is kind of like Japan’s equivalent of mac and cheese. Short for “omelette rice”¹ , it’s essentially a good way to use leftover ingredients but suit them to Japanese tastes.²

Follow the jump for more, and one more photo (not really a whole gallery this time).

(more…)

1. because the Japanese love their portmanteaux almost as much as I do [↩]
2. For those interested, this idea of taking Western-style dishes but bending them to Japanese flavor profiles is not uncommon. It’s a subgenre of Japanese cuisine called youshoku. If you’re familiar with kareraisu (curry rice), that’s part of the youshoku family, too. A good indicator is whether or not the name is just a Japanese pronunciation of borrowed English words—but that’s not always the case. However, if sighting such a word makes you suspicious, you may want to investigate further to see if you’re right. [↩]

Year of the Bento: Bento No. 2: Pan-Seared Tilapia with Caramelized Leeks and Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Salad Bento

January 18th, 2010, lunch, photos, year of the bento, Janaki, 4 Comments

As you may already have guessed, this isn’t a Japanese bento. I enjoy Japanese food a lot, but as with most other things, I don’t like to restrict myself to only eating one type of food. I like flavors that play well together, and giving respect to ingredients, cuisines, cultures, and traditions. However, I’m a multicutural person and my particular style of cooking tends to reflect this—as will my bento.

That having been said, follow the jump for details and a gallery.

(more…)