Basic Japanese Rice

Japanese rice is of the japonica type. It is a medium-grain rice—that is, the grains are about two and a half times as long as they are wide. The “Japanese rice” available in North America is grown in the United States. It is comparable to good Japanese-grown rice. For people used to long-grain rice, Japanese rice looks rounded and relatively short and wide. The raw grains look translucent and slightly glassy, and a few will have a small opaque white patch. Japanese rice used to be coated i