Food and culture
Rice and rice dishes
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What is donburi? Japan's rice bowls, from unadon to katsudon
Donburi is rice in a deep bowl with a topping laid over it. The bowl itself, how unadon began, and when oyakodon, gyūdon, tendon and katsudon appeared. -
How rice is cooked in Japan: washing, soaking, resting and the rice cooker
Japanese rice is washed, soaked, cooked until the water is gone and rested under the lid. What each step does to the grain, and how the kamado gave way to the rice cooker. -
Cooking Japanese rice at home, outside Japan
Which rice to buy, how to read a Japanese rice bag, how to measure without a gō cup, and how to cook the rice in an ordinary pot when there is no rice cooker. -
What is Koshihikari? A guide to Japan's rice varieties
Koshihikari was crossed in Niigata in 1944, bred in Fukui and registered in 1956. How it became Japan's most widely planted rice, and what the other varieties are. -
What is onigiri? Japan's rice ball, also called omusubi
Onigiri is cooked rice pressed by hand into a triangle or ball, salted, filled and often wrapped in nori. Its shapes, its 2,000-year history, and the name omusubi. -
What is one gō? How Japan measures rice
One gō is about 180 mL, or about 150 grams of rice. How gō, shō, to and koku fit together, where the masu box came from, and what the old measures still size today. -
What is bento? The Japanese boxed meal, from rice balls to makunouchi
Bento is a meal carried to be eaten away from home. How it grew from rice balls wrapped in leaves into the makunouchi and shōkadō boxes of today.