(Iris has said my next book should have that title. I demurred but said it would work for a blog post. Here it is.)
I go through rice phases. For a while, nothing would do but Thai jasmine. Lately it’s been medium-grain japonica rice from California. Sometimes I get a hankering for basmati.
Thailand and India export a lot of rice, which is why you see bags of basmati and jasmine at Trader Joe’s and probably your local supermarket. Japan exports practically no rice. It’s a small country, and they eat all of their rice and then some. The rice you eat at your local sushi place, assuming your local sushi place is in Seattle rather than Japan, comes from California. Brands like Kokuho Rose, Nishiki, and Neko Neko do their best to look Japanese, but it’s all Californian.
Not that this is a bad thing. California produces some very fine products such as meyer lemons, Korean tacos, and Laurie.
On a recent trip to Uwajimaya, however, I noticed that they do, in fact, carry Japanese rice, in 1-kilo bags selling for $20 to $35. The packaging, naturally, is gorgeous. Hmm…rare, high price, pretty sack. I put out the word on Twitter: anyone tried this stuff?
Hsiao-Ching Chou responded:
> Spent waaaay too much money on rice from Japan. I thought the flavor would be transporting. No.
I trust Hsiao-Ching, but I didn’t say no when Jay Friedman of [Gastrolust](http://gastrolust.com/) gave me two cups of Koshihikari rice from Tochigi prefecture. Just saying the word “prefecture” is transporting, don’t you think?
I made a cup each of Nishiki from California and the koshihikari. On appearance, the koshihikari won: it’s aggressively milled pearls of rice, shorter grain than the Nishiki. But they tasted the same to me.
Janice Martin of [Tanuki](http://tanukipdx.com/) pointed me to this blog post about newly harvested fall rice in Japan. Maybe I’ll look for that. It sounds even more expensive!
I also tried one other rice, *haiga mai,* which is rice (Californian, in this case) milled until the bran is gone but the germ remains, so there’s a little brown spot at the end of each kernel. It’s been called “brown rice for people who don’t like brown rice.” Well, I’m certainly one of those people, but I didn’t like this stuff, either, although I could be cooking it wrong. It cooked up a little mushy and left a weird carpet-like layer on the bottom of the rice cooker.
To make a very long story short, then, if you like medium-grain rice, the basic California stuff is just fine.
I got some Japanese semi-brown rice from Fubonn here, and it cooked up fine in my Zojirushi with the semi-brown setting. I am, however, a brown rice fan (with milk and maple syrup for breakfast? Yum!) and don’t like the semi-brown as much as either white or brown. My favorite for both white and brown is Kokuho Rose, which I’ve been eating for years. Our Fubonn and Uwajimaya here have a good selection of Japan-origin rice – maybe I’ll branch out a bit and try something different.
My rice cooker doesn’t have a semi-brown setting. Actually it doesn’t have any settings. I buy the Kokuho Rose, Neko Neko, and Safeway store brand interchangeably, and they all seem the same to me. Next I’m going to try some koshihikari grown in California.
Glad you were able to give it a try! For the Japanese, especially during those incredible kaiseki meals, the eating is as much about the eyes as the mouth. Since giving you the rice, my partner has been discussing this with her Japanese friends, and they contend the cooked rice quality also depends on the quality of the rice cooker. I know there’s a degree of truth to this, as we’ve looked at high-end rice cookers, and the quality of the bowl tends to improve with price. (The bowls get thicker.) I’m curious to do THAT taste test – though I worry it might be a ploy to purchase a new rice cooker! (We’ve seen rice cookers up to about $800, and I’m sure there’s some improvement – however slight – in rice quality, even if just appearance, if we go beyond our already expensive $200 rice cooker.)
Yeah, my cheap cooker definitely overcooks the bottom of the rice. I am coveting the Zoji Rizo, the one that looks like a little animal.
I agree with Iris. It sounds like a wonderful book.
You can never have too much chocolate or rice!
We’re big fans of kalijira rice – it’s described as “like a baby basmati” on the Madison Market bin. It’s small (so also quick-cooking) and aromatic, though not really in the same way that basmati is.
I’m going to be nitpicky: “neko-neko” in Japanese means “cat-cat.” “Niko-niko,” on the other hand, means to smile broadly, hence the smiling guy on the front of the bag.
I’ve tried the haiga-mai too, and it left me cold. I’ll take plain-ole, white Calrose rice any day.
Whoops, thanks for the correction.
I found your blog from Nancy’s blog.
How do you cook Japanese rice or Calrose Rice? Usually Japanese rice needs to be rinsed and mixed by hand several times until the water clears. New Nishiki variety,Musen Mai, doesn’t require rinsing. New rice cooker will do better job cooking rice. However, you can cook Japanese style rice fine using old rice cooker by soaking in the water for 30 minutes and cook it after that.
Fumikob, I rinse three or four times and let drain for 20 to 30 minutes, then cook in a rice cooker with equal parts rice and water by volume.