All posts filed under: Rice

Spam, Umeboshi, and Egg Musubi

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Spam musubi are rice balls (onigiri or omusubi) that are topped with Spam and wrapped with nori; they are different from sushi because musubi rice is plain or seasoned with salt, whereas sushi rice is seasoned with vinegar, sugar, and salt. They are a popular in Hawaii and are great as breakfast or a portable snack. They are easy to bring along for a hike. The simplest Spam musubi are made from rice, salt, spam, and nori, but many variations can be made. Musubi Cafe Iyasume, which was just around the corner from the hotel I stayed at in Honolulu, offers avocado egg bacon Spam, umeboshi cucumber Spam, teriyaki Spam, egg cucumber Spam, and shiso Spam. The umeboshi version is my favorite since it is salty from the Spam and sour from the umeboshi. The recipe below combines Spam, umeboshi, and egg; it makes 6 musubi using a “mini” 7 oz can of Spam. If you’d like to use a regular 12 oz can of Spam, then double the recipe but make 10 musubi. Tare is a Japanese term for a sweetened, thickened soy sauce; each …

Cajun Basic Rice

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The benefit of using the oven to cook this rice is that it frees up your stove to make other things, and you don’t need to watch it closely. Source: Heavily modified from “Basic Cooked Rice” from “Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen” by Paul Prudhomme

Sushi Rice

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Sushi rice is very easy and quick to make since it requires only three steps: washing the rice, cooking it, and tossing with a vinegar marinade. The most important thing is to use a short grain Japanese style rice and to make sure you cook it well (it shouldn’t be mushy). Preferably buy a rice grown in Japan or California. Japanese style rice is generally one of two varieties: sasanishiki or koshihikari. Koshihikari has many subtypes, including hitomebore, akitakomachi, hae-nuki, hi-no-hikari, kirara, tama-nishiki, kagayaki, and tamaki-mai; often koshihikari will be identified by only its subtype. These types of rice give the best texture for sushi. Preferably use rice that was harvested more than 6 months ago. Some rice may be labeled as “new crop rice”, which is rice that is sold just after harvest from October through February. When it is freshly harvested, the grains are moister since the grains have had less time to dry out; it is too moist and tender for sushi though it is wonderful as table rice (use less water than normal and use the …

Thai Sticky Rice

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Thai sticky rice is used all over Thailand in desserts (e.g. Coconut Sticky Rice with Mango) and also eaten with main dishes in northern Thailand. When eaten with a meal, small bites of this rice are grabbed with the fingers and combined with a small piece of a non-saucy main dish (e.g. larb), fresh crisp side vegetables (cucumber, lettuce, etc), or chili relish. Since this rice is traditionally eaten with one’s fingers, it is usually eaten with dishes that are solid and not very saucy; it shouldn’t be used to soak up sauces (so for example, it does not go with curry). This type of rice is called sticky rice, glutenous rice, or sweet rice. There are numerous cultivars of glutinous rice (including japonica, indica, and tropical japonica strains, see wikipedia), but the other types of sticky rice cannot be used as a replacement for Thai sticky rice (e.g. Chinese glutenous / sweet rice is something different). Milled glutinous rice is white and fully opaque when raw and slightly translucent when cooked (whereas non-glutinous rice which is slightly translucent …