The name sounds like a vegetable pickle, but this Akita dish is mostly a chilled rice base cooked with sugar and sharpened with vinegar. Soaked rice is ground with a few grains left whole, which gives it a slightly nubbly texture. Cucumber and turnip go in only once the base is completely cold, to keep their crunch, and seasonal fruit sits on top.
Pork large intestine is stuffed with glutinous rice, pork blood, blanched mung bean sprouts and napa cabbage, and doenjang, then steamed into a thick sundae that cuts into broad, heavy slices. The casing is filled only about 80 percent to leave room for the rice to swell, and the cooked sundae cools completely before slicing, or the filling squeezes out.
Pull a piece and it breaks off cleanly instead of stretching the way all-rice mochi does. That is the wheat at work: a soft flour dough steams in the same basket as the glutinous rice, and the two are pounded together while hot. In the Nakakawachi and Minamikawachi areas of Osaka it was made around Hangesho, once rice planting was done, to give thanks and pray for a good harvest, and it is rolled in sugared kinako.
Sliced into rounds after grilling, each piece of this stuffed squid shows rings in cross section: chewy squid outside, sticky glutinous rice, then soft tofu. Soaked rice swells as it cooks, so the tubes are filled only 70 to 80 percent. Packed full, they split on the grill.
Rice and chicken breast cook in the stock first, then eggs beaten with lemon juice turn the broth thick and tart. Hot stock is whisked into the eggs a ladle at a time to warm them, and once they are in the pot the soup never comes back to a boil.
Ninety grams of scorched rice, broken into chunks rather than crumbs, is added for the last three minutes. It is served while the edges have melted into the broth and thickened it but the centers still have some bite. Seasoning waits until the rice has swelled and the stew has thickened.
One pot of spicy anchovy broth carries three rounds: thin beef and vegetables first, then kalguksu noodles, then fried rice scraped from the bottom. Beef slices go in one at a time, since a clump stays red in the middle. Each round leaves more flavor in the broth for the next. Stop the rice once a thin crust starts to form, before it scorches.
Chewy brown rice, plump barley, and soft lentils give three different bites in every spoonful. Each grain is cooked separately and cooled completely before mixing, since hot grains would wilt the vegetables. Instead of olive oil, the dressing uses perilla oil, a toasty Korean seed oil, with apple cider vinegar. Halved cherry tomatoes release juice that works as part of the sauce, while cucumber and red onion add crunch between the dense grains. Made ahead, it keeps its flavor and travels well in a lunchbox.
Shrimp creole leans on tomato rather than roux: whole tomatoes are crushed and reduced with onion, celery, and bell pepper until the sauce thickens on its own. That trio of vegetables, the classic Louisiana base, gives the sauce its savory depth, with paprika adding color. The shrimp go in at the end and come out as soon as they turn pink, then everything is spooned generously over warm rice.
Flying fish roe, stir-fried kimchi and diced yellow pickled radish sit in sections over rice, scattered with crushed seasoned laver and scallion. The rice is tossed with sesame oil and butter first for a gloss. Left on hot rice, the roe goes slack and the laver soggy, and the bowl is mixed the moment it is ready.
Inside the pork casing, soaked glutinous rice swells as it steams and binds the glass noodles and pork blood into a dense, sticky filling. That swelling is why the casing is filled only about 80% of the way and why any puffed spots get a quick needle prick during steaming.
Glutinous rice soaked a full day in food-grade lye water, wrapped in bamboo sheath and boiled for about three hours, ends up with no grain left to see, just a glossy, amber, jelly-like block. The cake itself is unsweetened, so it is sliced and served with kinako. Use only lye water sold for cooking, and keep it off bare skin.
Hard scorched rice dropped into hot seafood broth starts out crisp, turns chewy, and if left a while longer softens into something like porridge. It goes into each bowl at the table rather than into the pot, and how long you wait decides which version you eat.
A roux of butter and flour, stirred only to light brown, gives etouffee both its nutty aroma and its body. Taken darker, it turns bitter and overpowers the delicate shrimp. Onion, celery, and bell pepper go straight into the hot roux, and their moisture loosens it before chicken stock is whisked in a little at a time. Compared with shrimp creole, the sauce is brown and buttery rather than tomato-red. The shrimp cook in it only briefly at the end and are served over rice.
A modest scoop of rice gets its toppings arranged to taste: shredded chicken, thin egg strips, simmered shiitake, green beans, miso-pickled papaya, scallion, citrus peel, and nori. Hot chicken-bone broth is then poured over generously, and the bowl is eaten lightly, almost like soup. On Amami, the earliest form resembled seasoned chicken rice, and the custom of pouring broth over it spread in the Showa era and became standard. The bones simmer with ginger for an hour, and the tenderloin is poached in that same broth, which ties the meat and the soup together.
Regular rice outnumbers glutinous rice two to one here, and the cooked rice is pounded only halfway, so whole grains still show under the bean paste that wraps each piece completely. The paste is cooked in the pot from unsweetened raw bean paste, sugar and water. Half-pounded rice is very sticky, so cut it small for children and older adults.
Freshly cooked rice, pounded until about half the grains break, is pressed around skewers and browned, then cut into pieces that soak up chicken broth and turn chewy, much like rice cake. Kiritanpo comes from Akita Prefecture, where the rice is traditionally wrapped on cedar skewers and grilled over charcoal; this version browns the sticks in a dry pan instead.
Cut one open and the mozzarella in the center stretches out of a crisp, amber breadcrumb shell. The risotto is used cold, mixed with Parmesan and worked until the grains cling together, which lets it close around the cheese without cracking.
Puffed rice bound with jocheong (Korean rice syrup) feels hard when you press it, then breaks cleanly when you bite. The syrup is not very sweet, so the toasty rice, nuts and sesame come through. Humidity softens it quickly; keep it in an airtight container.
A 1.5 kg duck is stuffed with soaked glutinous rice and simmered in water already steeped with a Korean herbal pack of astragalus and eumnamu. By the end the rice inside has turned to porridge, served together with the meat. Duck is tougher than chicken and needs more than an hour and a half.
The rice gets sesame oil and salt, no vinegar. Pick an avocado that gives slightly when pressed yet holds its shape when sliced: underripe fruit is coarse to chew, and overripe fruit gets crushed by the bamboo mat. Cut avocado loses color and texture quickly, and it is prepared right before rolling.
These plain glutinous rice balls have no filling: half are rolled in pale roasted soybean powder and half in black sesame powder, with honey on the side for dipping. The dough calls for dry-milled glutinous rice flour. Wet-milled flour or regular rice flour will not take the same amount of water, and the chew changes too.
Each small hen is stuffed with soaked glutinous rice, fresh ginseng, jujubes, and garlic, and as it simmers the rice releases starch that gives the broth a soft, nutty body. Soak the rice at least 30 minutes so it cooks through inside the bird, and leave room for it to swell. A loose leg joint signals the hen is nearly there, but the thickest thigh meat and the rice in the cavity each need their own look. Salt is served on the side for dipping rather than added to the pot.
Rousui comes from the Katsuura area of Tokushima, and the word is said to be a local form of zosui, Japanese rice porridge. Whole sweetfish are laid over rice, potato and eggplant as they simmer, and their aroma goes into the broth. Once cooked, the fish move to a plate to be picked clean of even the fine bones before the flesh returns to the pot. Broken up in the pot, those bones would be hard to find.