Every summer we buy corn from a farm in Kodaira, in western Tokyo — yes, Tokyo grows corn — and the first thing we make is this: sweet kernels folded into rice, steamed in a donabe, and finished two ways at the table. We can never choose, so we do half soy sauce, half butter.
Serves 3–4 · 10 min prep + soaking (overnight, or 2–3 hours) + about 30 min cook & rest
Ingredients
- 2 rice-cups (360 ml) short-grain Japanese rice
- 1 ear fresh corn (about 1 cup kernels)
- 450 ml water for cooking · 1 tsp sake (optional) · ¼ tsp salt
- To finish: good soy sauce and/or a small knob of butter
How to make it
- Rinse the rice until the water runs almost clear, then drain. Cover it with water about 1–2 cm above the surface of the rice and leave it to soak — overnight if you can, or two hours in summer and three in winter. Pour that soaking water away and drain the rice well. This step is what keeps the grains from staying hard in the middle.
- Cut the kernels off the cob — and keep the bare cob.
- Add the drained rice, the 450 ml of fresh water, the sake, and the salt to a donabe (or rice cooker). Scatter the kernels on top and lay the bare cob in.
- Donabe: cover and bring to a boil over medium heat (about 10 minutes), then turn to low for about 12 minutes, then rest off the heat for 10 minutes. (Rice cooker: just cook as normal.)
- Remove the cob and fold the rice gently to mix.
- Finish each bowl your way — a few drops of good soy sauce for savoury depth, or a small knob of butter for richness. (Both is allowed.)
Tip
The bare cob steams its sweetness into the rice — don’t skip it. With soy sauce it tastes like late summer in Japan; with butter, like Hokkaido.
No rice cooker? Here is how to cook Japanese rice in a pot →
