How to cook Japanese rice with your pot.

Servings 4 people

Author Mika

Place the rice in a bowl and add enough water to cover it.
Wash the rice lightly
Drain the cloudy water using a small mesh strainer. In the first step, the dried rice rapidly absorbs water, so make sure you do this quickly to wash off the dust. It’s also an effective way to remove the bran from the rice.
Return the drained rice back to the bowl and pour clean water into it. Gently wash the rice with a massaging motion for about 30 seconds or so and drain again.
Repeat the same process once more or until the water becomes a thin clear milky color like this.
Drain the rice well in a colander.

Place the rice in the pot. Add 600ml of water. You want 200ml of water for each cup/gou (180ml of dried rice). Cover the pot with a lid and soak the rice for about 30 minutes.
Cook over medium heat.
When the water starts boiling, turn the heat down to low and continue cooking for about 10 minutes.
Turn off the heat and steam for 10 more minutes with the lid on.
After you've steamed the rice divide it into 4 parts.
Rotate each part of the rice in a circular motion, be careful not to mash your rice while moving it from the bottom to the top to help release the steam using a "Shamoji" rice paddle.
Voilà!

Washing the rice to much will cause the flavor to disappear as well as the smell of bran. Remember, the point in washing the rice is to clean it and remove the smell of bran not the flavor. However, it’s completely up to ones preference.
Make sure to use soft-water when you wash rice. Minerals in hard water cover ingredients and prevent the rice from soaking up water.
Both soaking and steaming are important when cooking rice so there is no hard parts left inside.