I enjoyed the Ragu video so much I thought I’d give it another try. This time around I cooked up some fine Japanese rice in my favorite fancy pants rice cooker, and partnered it with some fresh kale and some leftovers from the freezer. It was a lovely rainy day, so you’ll hear a good bit of rain at the start, but it tapers off as we go along.
The wooden rice spatula that I soak in water is Yakusugi, meaning it is made from a cedar tree on Yakushima that’s over 1000 years old. If you soak it in water long enough the rice won’t even stick to it. I didn’t soak it long enough for that to happen here - so I just ate the rice that stuck to it. I got it several months ago and it smells absolutely wonderful. Even the drawer that it’s in and the cabinet that that drawer is in have this incredible cedar scent now. It’s pretty remarkable. I got it from The Rice Factory, linked below, but it was a limited offer, so you’d probably have to hunt one down.
Toyama Tenkomori Japanese Short Grain Rice (it’s delicious):
https://the-rice-factory.square.site/product/toyama-tenkomori/7?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=false&category_id=6
Cooked in Zojirushi NP-NVC10 Induction Pressure Rice Cooker (it’s awesome). It uses some crazy combo of induction and pressure cooking to try at cook rice to the most magical fluffiness. It's actually trying to mimic what it's like cooking in a stone pot over a fire in a traditional japanese kamado stove.
https://www.zojirushi.com/app/product/npnwc
Kale Recipe:
Just do what you see on screen. I made it up on the spot.
The other dishes were leftovers:
Dal Tadka, sometimes I follow this recipe, sometimes I wing it:
https://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/restaurant-style-dal-tadka/
Gumbo z’Herbs from John Currence’s Pickles, Pigs, and Whiskey:
https://chefjohncurrence.com/pickles-pigs-whiskey/
Camera:
Canon 6D (mk1)
Microphone: Rode Video Micro
Tripod: I used my flimsy little Benro travel tripod for this one because I didn’t want to go get my big tripod. 3 Legged Thing Ball Head
