Shokuji Meaning: Niki Nakayama’s Quick-Pickled Veggies Recipe

The term shokuji means “meal,” and the course often comes last or near the end of a kaiseki meal served in the Japanese tradition. The simple moniker is a reference to the more humble cha-kaiseki (tea ceremony) of just rice and pickled vegetables, a nod to modern kaiseki’s culinary roots.

When it comes to sauces and seasonings, much of Japanese cooking is ratio-based. For shokuji pickled peppers, world-renowned Japanese American Chef Niki Nakayama uses a ratio of two parts rice vinegar to two parts dashi stock to one part sugar, also called a “2:2:1 brine.” Another name for this particular brine is “mazu,” which means “sweet vinegar.” A mazu is versatile, and you can add aromatics or herbs, such as shiso to change up the flavor.

Shokuji pickled vegetables pair well with a side of steamed Japanese rice that is fluffy, light, tender, glossy, and slightly sticky. The grains should cling together when cooked, but each distinct grain is intact and has its own chew. Here are Chef Niki’s tips for making Japanese rice with the right texture:

• Measure the rice and water. Measure the amount of rice you want to cook by weighing it on a kitchen scale. Also measure your water for cooking later. “We’re gonna make sure that our rice is fairly dry before we put it in,” Chef Niki says, “And the amount of water that we’re adding is about 11 percent more weight than the original measurement of the rice when it was dry.”
• Rinse the rice using cold water. Put the rice in a fine-mesh strainer set over a large bowl. In the sink, wash the rice under cold low-running water. (You don’t want the water pressure to be so high that you risk breaking the grains of rice.)
• Swish the rice to remove starch. As the water fills the bowl, gently swirl the rice with your hand. You’ll notice a lot of the starch wash off. “What we wanna do is make sure that we rinse as much of that starch away as possible,” she says. “So I like to swish it around a little bit and sort of gently run my fingers through this rice.” (Excess starch can make the rice overly sticky or clumpy.) Pour the water out of the bowl once it’s full. Repeat a few times until the water runs fairly clear. Drain the liquid and shake the rice in the strainer to remove any excess water.
• Soak the rice. Transfer the rice to your donabe, pot, or rice cooker. Pour the cooking water that you measured earlier over the rice and set it aside for twenty to thirty minutes.
• Steam the rice with the lid on. If you’re using a double-lidded donabe, place the lids on the pot (the single steam hole on the top lid should be perpendicular to the two holes on the interior lid). Cook the rice over medium heat until you see steam steadily coming out of the hole of the top lid; this should take about ten to twelve minutes. Let the rice rest off of the heat for fifteen to twenty minutes.
• Fluff the rice gently. Carefully remove the lids from the rice. Using a rice shamoji or a rubber spatula, gently fluff the rice. “The technique that I like to impart in fluffing the rice is sort of [gathering] from all the edges first, and then mix it inward but very gently because we wanna make sure that we’re not smashing the rice,” Chef Niki says. “The whole point is to sort of fluff it up. I don’t wanna overmix it because I want it to still retain some of that heat on the bottom, Give it some room to breathe.”