Cooking with Rice: Japanese Recipes - Online

This is a live, interactive, hands-on cooking class held online via Zoom. See our registration policies here. 

Kicking off a new series featuring one of Camila's favorite ingredients, rice! In this first edition, we'll look at rice through the lens of Japanese cuisine. We will learn to properly cook rice the Japanese way, with or without a rice cooker!

Afterward, we'll use rice in three popular recipes full of comfort. First are onigiri which are filled and wrapped rice triangles. Easily found in convenience stores in Japan, these are great snacks to eat anytime of day. Camila learned to make them from her beloved Takako-san, for a picnic lunch aboard a tiny boat in the Ine-cho Bay. Easy to make and with infinite variations, you will never tire of eating onigiri!

If onigiri is the outdoor, portable comfort food, ochazuke (which translates as “submerged in tea”) just might be its indoor, cozy version. Ochazuke is a soup of rice steeped in tea, with little bits of leftovers (usually fish), but variations abound. It is a humble nostalgic dish typically made at home. The flavor and variety comes from the customization of your choice of condiments. Just like onigiri, ochazuke is fitting for any meal of the day, breakfast, lunch, or dinner. 

The final comfort food is omurice, an iconic Yoshoko dish. Yoshoko cuisine are Western dishes reinterpreted through a Japanese lens. The name combines "omelette" and "rice", and that is exactly what it is: flavored rice (usually stir-fried with meat or tofu) topped or wrapped in an omelette, garnished with ketchup. In restaurants, they make quite a show of slicing the omelette to reveal a gooey, oozy interior. The home style version is a flatter, more well cooked omelette. Hearty and satisfying, it is a meal beloved by people of all ages.

Besides delicious food, here's what you can expect from an online class with Camila: Chef Camila has a broadcast-quality multi-camera setup with professional microphone and lighting, creating top notch video quality. Some visuals and graphics are included for clarity and visual aid. The class is fully interactive; Camila can see your home setup and respond to questions in real time on substitutions, cookware, technique, and the recipe. Classes are paced so that you can cook along in real time, or, if you prefer, sit back, watch, enjoy, and learn. Registrants will have access to the class video to rewatch as many times as your heart desires! Click here to see a sample video of what to expect in class.

MENU

Japanese Style Rice

Onigiri (and variations): Japanese Rice Triangles with Fillings 

Ochazuke: Rice and Tea Soup 

Omurice: Japanese Fried Rice with Omelet 

Equipment and Ingredient list can be found here!

This menu contains the following common allergens: Egg, Tree Nuts. If you have allergies or dietary restrictions that concern your ability to cook along, please e-mail info@18reasons.org before purchasing a ticket.

Let’s Cook Together!

If you’re new to 18 Reasons Online, please read this guide: How to Take an Online Class at 18 Reasons. Five calendar days before class, 18 Reasons may decide to cancel this class if not enough tickets are sold. We will notify registrants by email about cancellations.

Camila Loew holds a Ph.D. in Humanities and is a certified nutrition consultant. Having lived alongside the Mediterranean for almost two decades, she believes that the best cooking relies on simple recipes with outstanding ingredients. That's the Mediterranean way she conveys in her classes, along with the concept of sobremesa, which happens to be the name of the company she runs. Sobremesa is the leisurely time we spend gathered around the table. In addition to running Sobremesa Culinary Tours, through which she offers delicious cultural and culinary experiences abroad for fellow food-lovers, Camila founded and directs the Food Studies & Gastronomy program at the University of Barcelona, and teaches academically about Mediterranean food culture to American students abroad. Since 2014, Camila has been sharing her love of regional Spanish and Mediterranean cuisines at 18 Reasons. For more information visit her website www.sobremesa.life  

_{Photo by Daniel Téllez Girón on Unsplash}