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Sekihan

Glutinous rice steamed in the beans' own cooking water, aerated to keep the colour red.

Vegan.

Ingredients

Method

  1. THE BEANS' COOKING WATER IS THE DYE, and everything about the method exists to protect its colour. The beans are boiled, that red liquid is kept, and the rice soaks in it overnight. Beans cooked in fresh water and added to white rice give a plate of rice with beans in it, which is not this dish.
  2. AERATE THE LIQUID BY POURING IT, from a height, between two bowls, twenty or thirty times. Oxidising it fixes the colour bright red; left standing it goes brown and so does the rice. This is the step nobody expects.
  3. THROW THE FIRST BOIL AWAY, though -- 5 minutes, drained, and that water discarded. It holds the bitterness, and only the SECOND water is the dye.
  4. Then cover again with 600 ml of fresh water and simmer 20 to 25 minutes, until the beans are just tender but not split. Split beans go to mush in the steamer.
  5. Drain, keeping every drop of the liquid, and aerate it.
  6. Rinse the glutinous rice and soak it in the cooled red liquid overnight, or at least 6 hours. The grain takes the colour right through.
  7. STEAMED, NOT BOILED. Glutinous rice boiled in that quantity of water turns to paste. Drain it, keeping the liquid again, and steam it on muslin 20 minutes.
  8. SPRINKLE THE RESERVED LIQUID OVER IT TWICE DURING STEAMING, at about 8 and 15 minutes, turning the rice over with a spatula each time. That is how it cooks through evenly without ever sitting in water.
  9. Beans folded in for the last 5 minutes, gently, so they stay whole.
  10. Gomashio: the black sesame toasted dry until it pops, then crushed coarsely with the salt. Scattered over each bowl, and the salt is the only seasoning the dish gets.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Japan · All recipes