Thai people have been closely bound up with rice for a long time, and rice is also Thai daily main dish or, essentially, the heart of the meal. Apart from Thailand, rice is also the main dish in Asia, including India, China, Japan and Cambodia. Furthermore, in the Asian food business, people see rice cooking as the most important aspect when it comes to creating the perfect rice dish.
People in different countries and religions have their version of rice. Their variation of rice seeds according to the kinds of rice and menu makes the ways of their rice cooking unique.
How to properly cook aromatic Japanese rice
Japanese rice has smaller size and stickier texture other types of rice. You can use it in various menus; for example, Katsu-Don (fried pork with omelette rice) and onigiri (rice balls) etc. Japanese rice has a complicated way of cooking because of its uniqueness.
This is how you cook a nice Japanese rice. First, prepare the rice by rinsing it in water. Wash them with water carefully by stirring them with your hands, or softly pressing on them so that the rice coat can be washed away. You have to gently wash them since the rice seeds are so slight and brittle. While you wash the rice, you should always change the water several times until the water appears to be clear. This usually takes 15-20 minutes. This process is the most important part as it could make those cooked rice have a better taste. Lastly, keep them on colander for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, pour the rice into a rice cooker and put some water in proportion to the rice. If you would like to make sushi or onigiri, you should put less water than usual so that the rice will be more sticky and clingy.
When the rice is ripe, let them cool down for a while, then you just open the cooker’s lid. As for sushi and onigiri, in this process, you should first add some vinegar, Mirin, sugar, and salt to make it more flavorful.
Besides the Japanese rice, there are many kinds of rice that you can cook via different methods; for instance, Thai sticky rice, which we will discuss on further information later.
How to cook soft and delicious sticky rice
Sticky rice is the food in Thais’ everyday life. It can be tasty when you have it with papaya salad, spicy minced meat salad, or others. There is a special how-to for cooking delicious and ripen sticky rice. For ease sake, we recommend using an electric rice cooker. In the past we use the earthen steamer, which consume a lot of time on preparing and cooking.
First, prepare by washing the rice seeds until they’re clean. Wash them gently in the same way you wash the Japanese rice. Then put them in the rice cooker and pour water into it. The water used for sticky rice should be less than when you’re cooking the usual rice.
When the rice is ripen, open the lid and use a ladle to stir as a way to find out whether the rice is still slushy or not.
As you can see, all kinds of rice have their own methods of creation, and thus a large variety of rice that you can include in any dishes. You can also practice for the rice menu as you need.
