Japanese style garlic fried rice is often served at Teppanyaki restaurants as a side dish for steaks or grilled seafood. Minced fresh garlic is slowly cooked in olive oil and butter in a frying pan, and the cooked steamed rice is fried in the aromatic oil. Similar to garlic noodles or garlic bread, the flavor combination of garlic, oil, and rice can’t go wrong. This is an easy to make side dish, and the flavor is so addictive! You can double the recipe if you cook on a griddle or a large skillet.
Folding Onigiri is another way to make Onigiri (おにぎり) rice ball. In this way, you don’t have to hold and shape steamed rice directly in your hands, therefore rice doesn’t stick everywhere. It is also called Onigirazu. All the fillings including rice are placed on a sheet of Nori roasted seaweed, and everything is neatly folded together like Origami paper. The fillings could be anything you like, but here I made Carrot Sunomono, Tuna mayo, and Tamagoyaki egg as fillings for the Onigiri. Super yummy and nutritious! Hope you enjoy this flavor combination!
Salmon Flakes is one of my favorite dishes I frequently make from Japanese Cooking 101. Here I made Salmon Onigiri, Steamed Rice mixed in with Salmon Flakes. Onigiri rice ball is great food for breakfast, lunch, and snacks. Keep your Salmon Flakes in the freezer, and you can add it frozen to hot Steamed Rice. Wrap with Nori roasted seaweed, and your easy light meal is done. Try it, you’ll love it!
Teriyaki Chicken Bowl is grilled chicken with sweet and salty Teriyaki sauce over Steamed Rice in a bowl. The all-time favorite entree Teriyaki Chicken has now turned into an even more casual entree. This one-dish meal will surely be a big hit for everyone from kids to adults.
Okowa is seasoned sweet rice cooked with meat and vegetables. Okowa by itself can be a main dish in a meal because of the abundance of ingredients mixed in with the sticky rice. With Miso or some other soups, you can have a great meal with minimal cooking.
Curry and Rice (カレーライス) is Japanese-style thick curry sauce with chunky meat and vegetables over Steamed Rice. It is one of the most eaten dishes in Japan today whether at curry restaurants or at home. Curry and Rice is not traditional Japanese food at all, but it is an essential food in modern Japanese cuisine.
Dry Curry is a kind of curry dish that is made of ground meat and minced vegetables. It has been a popular home cooked meal in Japan for a number of years, although it’s not as widely known as the Japanese Curry and Rice outside of Japan. As the name indicates, the curry is “drier” than the typical curry with gravy, and it requires a lot less time to cook.
Steamed Rice is an essential part of Japanese cuisine. Before getting to the fancy dishes 😉, let’s refresh our memories so that we will be able to have the most important component of Japanese meals.
Ochazuke is Steamed Rice with hot tea poured over and some added toppings. It is not really a formal meal, but Ochazuke is often eaten when you don’t have time or don’t want to cook. Dashi Chazuke is using seasoned Dashi instead of merely tea, so there is a tiny bit more cooking involved to make Dashi broth.
Onigirazu is free form Onigiri, steamed rice and filling is merely wrapped with large sheet of Nori roasted seaweed. While Onigiri is shaped and formed by hands, there is no need to do that step for Onigirazu. It is very easy and quick to make it without a mess.