Julienned radish is laid on top of the rice, not mixed in, and as it cooks its water and sweetness work down into the grains, leaving them moister and sweeter than plain rice. The soy sauce dressing waits until just before eating; stirred in early, it turns the rice mushy. Winter radish makes it noticeably sweeter.
The radish greens are stripped of their tough stems, blanched and chopped fine, while the shrimp are not minced but lightly crushed with the back of a knife. The oil for sauteing them is perilla oil, not sesame.
Cooked octopus is far springier than raw fish, and thick pieces fight the rice instead of sitting on it. Sliced thin and wide with the knife held almost flat, each piece drapes over the sides of the rice and bites through together with it.
There is no boiling of octopus here: it is bought already cooked. Diced as small as the carrot and zucchini, it waits until the rice has fully softened, since a long simmer from the start would make it tough.
The rice cooks in plain water, and the salt and heat come later from a soy sauce with cheongyang chili and green onion that is mixed in at the table. Octopus tentacles steam on top of the rice so their sea aroma works into the grains, while thin radish slices covering the bottom of the pot stop the rice from sticking and add a little sweetness. The scorched rice at the bottom gets scraped up and eaten too.
Oyster mushrooms torn along the grain chew pleasantly between the slices of beef, stretching the dish and making it lighter than beef alone. The sweetness in the marinade is gentle, since it comes from pear juice.
The mushrooms come before the rice. Button mushrooms stay over high heat until their liquid is gone and the edges brown, and only then do onion, garlic and arborio go in, followed by warm chicken stock a ladle at a time. The rice is not rinsed; its surface starch is what makes it creamy.
Toasted in a dry pan until they crackle, the tiny anchovies get just a glaze of soy sauce and oligosaccharide syrup before being mixed into warm rice. Anchovies vary in saltiness from one package to the next, and saltier ones call for less soy sauce. Packed for a picnic, the rice balls taste much the same once cool.
The butter is split in two: half to cook the pollock roe for just a minute, half to melt over the hot rice. The roe comes off the heat the moment its color brightens, while the eggs still pop.
Because it starts from cooked rice simmered in anchovy stock rather than raw grains, this porridge comes together much faster. The pollock roe breaks apart into the broth, tinting it pink and spreading its salty, savory flavor through the pot. Eggs poured into a rolling boil seize into rough clumps, but drizzled in at a gentle simmer they set into soft curds.
Naengi (shepherd's purse, a spring green) is spread over doenjang-seasoned rice to steam, and when the lid comes off its earthy spring scent rushes out. The doenjang is first fried in perilla oil with zucchini and onion, so every grain picks up its savory depth.
The octopus gets two minutes over high heat, and the rice goes in as soon as it starts to curl. That leaves no time to mix sauce in the pan; it is stirred smooth before the burner is lit. For less heat, the chili flakes are dropped and gochujang used alone.
Two cheongyang chilies and a tablespoon of chili flakes make this properly hot. The octopus is tipped over the rice with all the loose sauce left in the pan, and bean sprouts can go down on the rice first for a crunchy layer underneath.
The flying fish roe stays in the fridge until the moment of rolling; once it warms up, the skins slacken and the eggs stop popping. Inside there is only a thin line of mayonnaise and cucumber, and a little more roe goes on the cut faces.
Rice cooked in cooled hojicha instead of water takes on a quiet roasted aroma, and dry-roasted soybeans add a nutty bite. Its early form is said to be the rice served with tea porridge to monks taking part in Omizutori at Todaiji. Travelers later carried it to Edo, where shops near Sensoji made it widely known. The beans and salt are scattered over the soaked rice and left unstirred while it cooks.
Rice koji and cooked rice slowly develop a mild sweet-sour character in the cold, and that flavor seasons pieces of salted trout, shredded daikon, and carrot. This fermented New Year sushi comes from the Hida and Chuno areas of Gifu, especially around Gero, where it was traditionally started in December. The packed container rests for 14 to 20 days somewhere consistently cold, and the pace changes with the weather and the ingredients.
Kecap manis, Indonesia's thick sweet soy sauce, coats each grain of cold rice in a glossy brown layer. Shrimp paste and sambal are fried first until the oil turns red, and the rice tastes salty and hot as well as sweet. On top goes a fried egg with crisp edges and a soft yolk.
In Penang, nasi kandar usually means rice flooded with several curry gravies mixed together, a style called kuah campur. This version keeps it to a single coconut chicken curry with halved boiled eggs. The curry is deliberately left thin so it seeps between the grains, and the rice is cooked a little drier than usual so it can soak up that gravy without going soft.
Nasi kerabu, a Malaysian rice dish, can be made with rice tinted by flowers; this one uses plain white rice cooked with coconut milk and lemongrass. Flaked grilled mackerel, cucumber, blanched bean sprouts and sambal are set around it separately and mixed in only at the table.
Rice cooked in coconut milk with pandan leaves makes a rich, fragrant base for the fiery sambal served beside it. Around it go crisp dried anchovies, roasted peanuts, boiled egg and cucumber, and each bite can be salty, crunchy, cooling or hot.
Compared with Malaysian nasi lemak, this Jakarta coconut rice has a lighter coconut note, with lemongrass and pandan adding a soft herbal layer. The rice itself is salted, and fried shallot flakes on top give it crunch. It is meant as a base for side dishes such as fried tempeh, chicken or thin egg omelet strips.
Unlike kabocha porridge, where the squash is steamed and blended, this porridge starts by boiling chunks of mature Korean pumpkin in water until no pieces remain, and the cooking liquid becomes the base. Neulgeun hobak is watery and only mildly sweet, so glutinous rice flour sets the thickness and sugar supplies the sweetness. Season with sugar at the very end, after the beans go in; the beans mute the sweetness, and seasoning earlier means correcting it twice. Dissolve the rice flour in water and strain it, or raw lumps will hide in the pot. Dried red beans take far longer than the pumpkin, so they go on the stove first, or use ready-cooked beans and skip that stage.
From Shiga Prefecture, oae dango combines flat boiled rice dumplings with konnyaku, shiitake, carrot and komatsuna, all coated in a shiraae dressing of tofu and ground sesame. Everything is cooled completely before mixing, and the dish is served at room temperature rather than hot.
Whole hulled barley keeps a gentle pop inside a thick pot of softened rice, kidney beans, and three kinds of potato. In Yamanashi mountain villages where paddy rice was hard to grow, rice was saved for celebrations and barley carried everyday meals. Nothing is seasoned in the pot; each diner stirs in negi miso, a mix of scallion, miso, bonito flakes, and a little sugar.