Survival Sunday 218: Rice & Natto!

A while ago, our Noodz Doodz gave us some Natto to put in our freezer. I've had freeze-dried Natto soup before, and it was pretty decent, but neither Z nor I had ever had "fresh" Natto. I'm using the quotes because Natto is a fermented food, so that'd be like saying you've had fresh sauerkraut or fresh beer. It's not fresh. It's fermented.

Regardless, I didn't hate natto then, so when we got some from the Doodz, I was intrigued. But it meant I'd have to make something I'm notoriously bad at making.

Rice.

You cannot have Natto without rice. I could not cook rice without burning it. Seriously, I burned a whole pot of rice once - not just the stuff touching the pan, all of it. It sucked. The house smelled like burned rice for hours.

But I spent an hour and a half on the internet trying to figure out how other people made rice well. I came to realize there were two approaches:

Buy a Rice Cooker (with Zojirushi being the by-far-preferred brand by people who've actually lived in Asia)

or

Ignore the instructions and give it less time than they say on the package.


So how do you cook rice?

Well, step one is measuring how much you want. I used the instructions on my sushi rice to take 1 cup of rice and wash it until the water ran mostly clear. Since I wasn't cooking this at my house, I then dumped the rice (with the help of a spoon) into a plastic baggie and carried it across town. When I arrived at Z's place, I dumped the rinsed rice into a pot and added the water (as indicated on my packaging). Then I turned up the heat and got ready to wait.

This was 1 cup of rice to 1.25 cups of water.
That's ~200g rice to ~300ml water.
I started with a high heat on the burner until the water got to a boil.

The moment the water started boiling, I slammed the temperature back to low and jammed a lid on the rice. This is the hardest, most miserable part of cooking rice - waiting.

You leave the lid on. Never take the lid off during cooking. Ever.
The package said 20 minutes at this phase.

Now, remember what I said about ignoring the rules on the packaging? Despite being commanded to leave this rice to simmer for a full 20 minutes, I decided to (especially since it had been damp in the baggie for over an hour) reduce that time. It was probably somewhere between 15-18 minutes. If you're working straight from rinsing-to-cooking, then maybe listen more. I'd also suggest getting either a Pyrex pot to cook in or at least a glass lid so you can see what's going on in there, because it's nerve-wracking to have a nondescript pot sitting on a burner and not know what the heck is happening to your food.

Thankfully, I needn't have worried too much!

Once you have had your fill of waiting/the time has come, you remove your rice from the heat and let it steam for 10 minutes. I couldn't resist taking a peak at this time and fluffing the rice a bit (to check for burned bits) with my chopsticks. Thankfully, everything seemed in order, and I left the lid on as long as Z could stand. Z was not happy with having to wait for the rice to finish steaming, but we went almost the full 10 minutes, so I'm proud of us.

I have no image of it, but Umai Crate sent us a rice paddle months ago, and I'm an official convert. I left almost 0 rice in that pot when I dumped it into the bowls, and the cute squirrel/beaver shape was perfect for getting the rice out and keeping it in the right shape in the bowl!

A terrible shot of the rice in Z's bowl before Natto

I tried some Natto and knew immediately that I wasn't going to be able to eat a whole bowl of it, but that was fine - we dumped some furikake on my rice and I was good to go!

Furikake? More like Furi-Crack-e.
This is the good stuff, guys. Get some!

I also tried a pretty good daikon soup with glass noodles. It was sour and the noodles were fantastic, and it went really well with my rice, even before the furikake was added!

My lunch - water, rice, & soup.
Believe it or not, that was super filling!
(soup-er)
(I'll show myself out...)

Finally, here's the Natto:

And yes, it's supposed to look like that.

Unfortunately, there aren't any shots on my phone of the Natto in Z's bowl. Then again, there wasn't much Natto for very long! Z added mustard & soy sauce (they came with the Natto) into this serving and mixed it up really well so that the fermented beans were well-coated, and then we plopped this onto the rice. Z ate about half without furikake, but after we added it, it became clear that furikake was the magic ingredient. It was pretty awesome to watch it disappear!

Natto tastes, to me, like extra-sharp cheddar cheese with a beany/peanutty undertone. It's strong - almost too strong - and has a bizarre texture. The beans themselves are the consistency of a blanched lima bean. They have a soft give to them, but there's enough resistance to remind you that, yes, there's something beany there. They have a slimy coating (the fermentation), which whips up into strands when you mix it up. These strands are as fine as cobwebs and equally impossible to control. Be very cautious when eating Natto with a beard - it will make you look like you've been to a haunted house or something. Bring face wipes with you if you intend to eat this at a restaurant - I'm pretty sure that a paper napkin won't really cut it.

All in all, this was an excellent experiment, and I hope that you all get out there and make some rice. Top it with anything you like - veggies, protein, even fruit!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC