NIIGATA KOSHIHIKARI Rice - Authentic Japanese Rice from Niigata Prefecture, 5kg (11 lbs) for Sushi and Japanese Cuisine

Our senior Australian Shepherd is a sushi rice expert to the point that it is a smidgen annoying. She refuses plain white rice and heaven forbid if we offer her minute rice or brown rice - who do we think we are?This is an animal who lived on the literal streets for years of her life before she came to live in our house and her diet consisted of what we believe to be what ever animal she could catch or garbage she could find. Now she turns her nose up at organic jasmati long grain white rice. Life is hard.Her usual favorite brand of rice is Nishiki, which costs about 8 cents per ounce or around $6.75 for a 5 pound bag. We have tried other brands of sushi rice and she refused them.* As a side note, we use a rice cooker (zojirushi) set on the sushi rice setting with 2 zojirushi cups of rice filled with water to the 2 sushi cups of sushi rice line. We rinse the rice first in cold water until the water runs clear.So, we made our special little aussie snowflake a batch of NIIGATA KOSHIHIKARI Rice and we were delighted when she ate it. (We do not feed our dog straight rice. She gets about two tablespoons of rice in each meal, which is a traditional dog kibble topped with probiotics and beef tripe.) Then we checked the Amazon listing for the rice and realized why she probably ate it - NIIGATA KOSHIHIKARI Rice costs 40 cents per ounce, which is five times more than Nishiki rice. Our girl has expensive taste.The one downside of having an 11 pound bag of rice is, you have an 11 pound bag of rice. This bag is not resealable either. Thankfully I have large bags meant to store dry food in long term and was able to parcel out 3 pounds of rice in smaller bags, but otherwise this large bag would be unbelievably awkward.We don't actually eat rice in our house because I am intolerant to rice and rice starch, so our rice budget is purely dog related. If NIIGATA KOSHIHIKARI Rice was less expensive we would absolutely continue buying it.

Compared to Tamaki Gold (also Koshihikari made in Niigata), I do like this stuff better.This stuff is a bit more sticky, and behaves better for sushi. It also differentiates itself more from Calrose than Tamaki Gold does in taste, so I see more of a reason to try it.It is a beautifully consistent rice. We found no bad grains. To cook it, we started with standard Instant Pot method, but it ended up undercooked. This rice NEEDS to soak, at least 30 minutes before cooking, or it will end up undercooked. For us, it did not need any extra water, just more soaking time.A small thing we also noticed is that it's less fragrant than Tamaki Gold... perhaps between the smell and the soak time, this rice is a bit older? I do prefer it anyways, but...Unfortunately, the cost is rather extreme for being rice... It was great to try a different option for Koshihikari, but it simply is not worth getting over Calrose unless you're making sushi or rice-rolls in a way that needs the extra pliability.Made in Japan.There was no easily readable expiration date on this... it may have been marked for either manufacturing date for either January or April 2023, but it's all in Japanese so I don't know.

This is Asian style short grain rice has a aldente texture so needs more water to become softer as it cooks. It did take longer than long grain rice to cook from start to finish.

I absolutely love this rice. It is a totally different experience than the long grain rice I am used to. I prepared this rice in my pressure cooker and it turned out perfectly. I rinsed the rice out until the water ran clear and then hand agitated the rice with a little water in it and rinsed it off again. Lastly I let it soak in a water bath covered for 20 minutes then poured the rice into a sieve and let drain completely for about 10 minutes.After that straight into the pressure cooker for 2 minutes and 10 minutes natural release. the ratio I used is a 1:1 water to rice ratio in the pressure cooker. If you use other methods you will have to use a little more water. This rice came out shiny and the texture and mouthfeel was amazing! I ate it with some cut up pork and soy sauce and it turned out wonderfully! Highly recommend trying this type of rice.

This is by far the best rice we’ve ever made at home and we eat a lot of different kinds of rice. When I was searching for a new bag of basmati rice, I came across this Niigata Koshihikari Rice, which I wasn’t familiar with by name. After a quick search, I found that it is the highest quality Japanese rice available and used in the best restaurants. Was so excited to receive it and after a quick translation of the bag, could see the only instructions were for a rice cooker. I was able to find a great stove top recipe and proceeded to follow the rinsing, soaking, cooking, and fluffing instructions. It turned out perfect! The aroma, texture, and taste are exquisite. Everyone in our family enjoys it immensely and looks forward to using often. Would give more than 5 stars if possible.

High quality sushi rice is not cheap, this particular bag comes out to about $6.35 per pound, but it's absolutely worth it once you try it (and 11 pounds will definitely last a while). When you're spending as much as you do for high-quality fish/sushi ingredients, you may as well also have a high-quality rice as your base. I do wish the bag was resealable, I ended up having to transfer this into two airtight containers, so it would stay fresh.I prepared mine using a rice cooker, but I'm sure it would turn out equally well using the stove top, pressure cooker, Insta pot etc.Definitely would recommend this brand for a splurge!