Red Rice on a Day of Celebration Yuki Matsubara

apan has a tradition to eat red rice (sekihan) on a day of celebration. It has been Jfundamental on celebratory occasions such as New Year’s Day, festivals, entering school, graduation and so on. Traditionally, we soaked the glutinous rice with cooking liquid from the beans overnight and steamed it to cook the red rice. However, it requires great care, time, and the knack to cook red rice at home. The beans easily get too soft, the rice easily gets too hard, and the beans don’t bleed well. Here I’ll introduce a recipe to cook it in a rice cooker.

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* 2.5go (approx.450g) glutinous rice * 0.5go (approx. 75g) white rice * 100g adzuki beans * salt to season (approx. 4-5g) * sesame and salt (if desired)

<> 1. Soak glutinous rice and white rice. 2. To remove the harshness of the beans, put the beans in a saucepan and cover with plenty of water. Bring to a boil and drain with a colander to discard the water. 3. Boil the beans again with plenty of water (3-5 times the amount of beans) until soft so that you can mash the beans with your fi ngers. Separate the beans from the red cooking liquid and cool it. 4. Place the glutinous rice, white rice, the beans and the cooking liquid in the rice cooker. *Adjust the water level to the line of “Okowa”. *Add water when the cooking liquid is below the line. 5. Add salt and press the switch. 6. When the rice is fi nished cooking, sprinkle sesame and salt on each serving of red rice.

translated by Kasumi Matsubara（松原 加純）

February / March 2012 i-News 16