A couple of weeks after it officially became Spring, it’s finally starting to get warm! Cherry blossoms will start blooming soon at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. So I’ll do a how-to on great picnic food for Hanami (Cherry blossom viewing). Character inari-zushi #1: Totoro inari-zushi Inari is fried bean curd cooked in soy sauce, sugar, mirin and water. The skin is juicy and sweet and the inside can be sushi rice, sweet rice, or even plain rice. If you can find fried bean curd, you should definitely try making inari from scratch. It’s juicier than the ones from a can. (I’ll try to get fried bean curd and do a how-to on this soon!) But for those who can’t get fried bean curd or want to always have it handy, like myself, there’s always canned inari skin. You can find these quite easily at an Asian supermarket or online stores. Its price varies where you buy them. For example, the orange one on the right is $2.99 at a Japanese supermarket and the one on the left is about $4.50 at a deli by my house.

The expensive one comes with an “easy-to-open” top, but that’s the only difference. They both contains the same amount of inari skins and taste pretty much the same. [How to make Totoro inari-zushi] (using canned inari skin) - Freshly cooked rice: As much as you want. You’ll use about three TBS of rice for each inari. - Inari skins: As many as you want. One can of inari-zushi contains about 15 ~ 17 skins. If you don’t use all the skins, keep the skin in a can with the fluid inside. Do not drain the liquid. (The skins will last a couple of days in the fridge. I wouldn’t recommend keeping it longer. It’ll start to get moldy.) - String beans (only for 4-b. See the instruction below.) - Uncooked pasta (only for 6-b. - hole punch, tweezers, toothpick, a straw, scissors While you cook rice, you can go ahead and cut the seaweed. It’s so much easier and goes faster when you have the seaweed ready. You need to cut seaweed for the eyes, nose, whiskers (for 4-a version), and the pattern on the stomach.

I used a hole punch for the eyes, and the nose is an eye cut in half. Make sure the seaweed is kept dry until you use it. Sushi rice: You can check out how to make sushi rice with only vinegar, sugar and salt.  Or you can get sushi rice powder.ki sushi order online Sweet rice: This is my favorite rice for inari-zushi. produtos sushi onlineYou just drizzle the mixture you cook Inari-skin in or the mixture that’s in a can into freshly cooked rice. get sushi lilleMake sure you don’t dump in all the mixture at once! watch sushi the global catch online freeAdd the mixture little by little and mix before you add more, and don’t let the rice get too soggy.ninja sushi game online free

Plain rice: I’d lightly seasoned the rice with salt, because it’ll make the skin taste sweeter. You can also add a bit of sesame seeds just for flavor but it’s totally up to you. 1. The skin may look like one piece out of a can, but it’s actually a pouch. how to eat sushi makiPeel open the cut-side VERY CAREFULLY.can you make sushi rice ahead of time 2. Cut the skin like in the below photo. (Save the small piece.) 3. Make a pocket with your hand, and hold the skin inside your palm, and put rice inside the inari skin. As you stuff the rice in, make sure you don’t over-stuff the inari skin and rip it. 4-a. Cut the small piece as pictured, this will be the ear. Fold the cut piece, cut a slit on the skin, and insert the cut piece in using a toothpick. 4-b. (good for beginners) Slice a cooked string bean, cut a slit on the skin, and insert the string bean.

5. Cut out a small circle of cheese, and put seaweed on to make an eye. Cut out cheese with a straw, cut it in half, and put seaweed on it to make a nose. 6-a. Put seaweed for the whiskers. 6-b. (good for beginners) Cook uncooked pasta in oil until it’s brown. After it’s cooled down, stick it into the body to make the whiskers. 7. Put the seaweed on the stomach and you’re done! If you’re making this for the first time, I’m pretty sure you’ll rip skin while you’re stuffing the rice into the Inari skin. But don’t panic, there’s a way to fix it. Just cut a piece of cheese, put some seaweed on it, and make him smile! You may feel like it’s hard to keep the shape on its own, but once you put them in a bento box tightly, the rice will be set into the place, and they’ll stay in the shape until you eat them. How to make Totoro inari-zushi on my flickr For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.

If you have any questions about any of my how-to’s, please feel free to leave a comment or email me!Learn the secrets to making Chipotle Cilantro Lime Rice at home. It all starts with the right type of rice cooked in an unusual way. Plus other methods for long-grain rice and even using a rice cooker! Sometimes in life, it’s the simplest things that are the best. After all, what is more satisfying than tucking into a huge scoop of Chipotle’s decidedly unfussy Cilantro Lime Rice?  It’s soft and fluffy with just the right amount of chew and a noticeable absence of stickiness. It’s friends with all the other ingredients on the menu and can work equally well on a burrito as on a salad.  How do they do it?  Why is the Chipotle Cilantro Lime Rice so perfect? Cooking perfect rice, cilantro lime or otherwise, has been a goal of mine for quite some time.  Over the years I brought my rice from crunchy and bland to properly seasoned and soft, but it was still sticky.  

I tried different varieties of rice: Jasmine, Basmati, long-grain, and short-grain.  I never quite found what I was looking for. Let me start off by saying: Although Chipotle uses long-grain rice, I found that I was able to most closely mimic their rice by using Basmati. However, I have experimented with other kinds of rice and cooking methods and have outlined those as well. Although I had tried Basmati in the past, I cooked it using the typical method for long-grain rice.  That is, measure a certain ratio of rice to water, boil, cover, and wait until all the water has absorbed.  I’ve read things about soaking rice 30 minutes prior, or rinsing it until the water runs clear, but none of that ever seemed to really make a difference. For the perfect Basmati rice, it doesn’t actually matter how much water you use as long as it’s A LOT. You’ll need to use at least 4 cups of water for every cup of rice, and leave it uncovered while it boils. I have updated this recipe to include a bay leaf (game changer!), recommended by many of the commenters below.

The final step is rinsing the rice in hot water after it’s been drained.  Stir in lime and lemon juices, salt, and finely chopped cilantro while the rice is still warm. Chipotle unquestionably uses long-grain rice, and you can too. To get as close to their results as possible, I recommend rinsing the rice to remove excess starch before cooking it. I honestly don’t know if Chipotle does that (probably not), but it will help reduce your potential for sticky rice. You could also add a teaspoon of oil to the pot. Chipotle uses Rice Bran Oil, but I always have olive oil on hand and it works very well. Don’t forget to add a bay leaf! Stir in citrus juice, salt, and cilantro when the rice is tender. I love my rice cooker! It has similar results to the stove-top but is a little more mindless. Rinse the rice before adding it to your rice cooker (my rice cooker instructions specifically suggest this, and I know from experience that less starch = less sticky rice). Add a teaspoon of oil and some salt if desired, and of course a bay leaf.

Honestly, I will always add a bay leaf to my white rice from now on, no matter what rice or what I’m doing with it! It’s just the best. Follow your rice cooker manual for exact portions, but mine is something along the lines of 3/4 cup rice to 1 cup water (there is a special “rice” measuring cup that is equivalent to 3/4 cup). Toss with salt, citrus juice, and cilantro at the end. Craving Chipotle’s brown rice? You can cook Cilantro Lime Brown Rice in a rice cooker or on the stove top, and you can use Brown Basmati Rice or Brown Long-grain rice. Just follow the revised cooking times as outlined in Step 7. Per the notes on Yield above, the recipe for Chipotle Cilantro Lime Brown Rice will yield 16 servings , 1/2 cup each (as opposed to 12 servings if you cook with white rice). By the way, this is my current rice cooker. It’s not overly complicated (or overly huge!) and does exactly what it’s supposed to do. My sister Erin and my sister Meredith each have the same one, too.

We all love it! It’s about $30 on Amazon with over 3,500 positive reviews. That’s a lot of rice! Chipotle Secret Menu Tip: Stop me if you’ve heard this already. If you are one of the millions of people who despise cilantro, you can ask for rice without cilantro at Chipotle. They have a bowl of it around. All you have to do is ask. And of course, you can make this version at home without it, too. And let’s be friends on Pinterest! I’m always pinning tasty recipes! Yield: 12 servings (1/2 cup cooked rice) Prep Time: 5 min Cook Time: 20 min Total Time: 25 min 2 cups basmati or long-grain rice, rinsed (see notes) 2 ¼ teaspoons salt, divided 1 teaspoon olive oil or rice bran oil, optional 2 Tablespoons finely chopped cilantro 2 Tablespoons fresh lime juice 1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice To cook basmati rice on the stove top, bring 8 cups water to a boil in a large pot. Add rice, 2 teaspoons salt, and the bay leaf.

Stir and return to a boil. Boil uncovered for 12 minutes.Using a fine mesh strainer, drain rice and rinse with hot water. Pour into a large bowl. Stir in cilantro, lime juice, and lemon juice. Add remaining ¼ tsp. salt or additional salt to taste. Serve hot or at room temperature. To cook long-grain rice on the stove top, bring 4 cups water to a boil in a large pot. Add rice, 2 teaspoons salt, bay leaf, and oil if using. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook for 15 minutes. To cook long-grain rice in a rice-cooker, add rinsed rice (see notes), water (according to manufacturer's instructions, see notes), salt, bay leaf, and oil if using. Close rice cooker, plug in, and turn on. Cook according to manufacturer's instructions. When the rice is finished, remove bay leaf. Stir in cilantro, lime juice, and lemon juice.  To cook brown rice, follow the instructions above using the following times: 40 minutes for Basmati on the stove top, 45 minutes for long-grain on the stove top, and 60 - 70 minutes for a rice cooker (or according to manufacturer's instructions).

Makes 16 servings, 1/2 cup each. If using long-grain rice, I recommend rinsing it before cooking it to remove excess starch. To rinse the rice, place it in a fine-mesh sieve under cool water and rinse until the water runs clear. Drain well before adding the rice to the pot or rice cooker. Alternatively, you could soak the rice in a large bowl of water for up to 30 minutes to help remove starch while conserving water. When using a rice cooker, it is important to follow the manufacturer's instructions for rice and water portions. Many rice cookers come with a specific "measuring cup" that may not be equivalent to a standard 8-ounce cup. They will also specify exactly how much water to use in relation to their measuring cup for best results. Those instructions supersede my quantities of rice and water here, but the other ingredients should remain the same (subject to your own taste preference, of course). This post contains affiliate links. For more information on my Affiliate and Advertising Policy, please click here.