Which rice is the best for Japanese Cuisine in Denmark?

When living abroad, one of the key concerns for Japanese people is how to get “rice” for Japanese cooking!

Generally speaking, rice directly imported from Japan is very expensive!

Ideally, you’d want to find a type of rice that’s readily available at local supermarkets. But here’s the catch—there’s a much wider variety of rice abroad than in Japan. If you accidentally pick the wrong type, you might end up with disappointingly dry and crumbly rice😭.

So today, I’m going to introduce the types of rice you can find at supermarkets in Denmark (and probably in other Nordic countries as well)!

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In Denmark, you’re likely to come across the following six types of rice:

Starting from the top left: Langkornederis, Grødris, Basmatiris, Parboiledris, Risottoris, and Jasminris.

Among these, only one type can be cooked to resemble Japanese rice.

Which one is it?

The answer is…….

the one in the middle of the top row:

Grødris!

The key characteristics of Japanese rice are its stickiness and mild flavor.

This rules out the strongly aromatic Basmati rice (Basmatiris) and Jasmine rice (Jasminris). These are better suited for Thai cuisine or Indian curries.

Next, there’s the long-grain rice (Langkornederis). While it’s less aromatic and more affordable compared to Basmati or Jasmine rice, it unfortunately tends to be dry and lacks the stickiness that Japanese people usually expect.

The rice that most closely resembles Japanese rice is Risotto rice (Risottoris). It’s also known as short-grain rice and is plumper than Japanese rice. Although it has less aroma than Basmati or Jasmine rice, it unfortunately tends to be oddly dry as well. As its name suggests, it’s delicious when used in risotto, but if you try to make rice balls (onigiri) with it, they’ll start to crumble as you eat them.

Then there’s Parboiled rice (Parboiledris). This rice is actually steamed while still in the husk and then dried. It’s said to be high in nutritional value, but it’s extremely dry. If you try to make rice balls with it… well, you can’t even make rice balls because it’s too dry 😅 . Be careful if you buy Parboiled rice expecting to make Japanese dishes—you might be in for a shock.

Finally, the remaining Grødris, also known as Pudding rice, is used to make a dessert called “rice pudding.” Surprisingly, this rice has the closest stickiness and mild flavor to Japanese rice!

Grødris, the rice that most resembles Japanese rice, costs about 15 kroner per kilogram (approximately 320 yen), which is half the price of Japanese rice, which is about 3,000 yen for 5 kilograms.

So, how does it taste?

While Japanese brand rice might cook up fluffier and taste better, Grødris still makes delicious rice! It’s perfectly suitable for Japanese cuisine 😁

Since we don’t have a rice cooker at home in Denmark, I cook Grødris in a pot. However, when I tried cooking it the same way as Japanese rice, it didn’t turn out as well, so I’ve adapted the method through trial and error 😉.

Here are the details on how to cook Grødris at home👇

How to cook Grødris for Japanese-style rice

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By the way, you can also buy “Sushi Rice” at Asian grocery stores. It’s probably the same variety as Japanese rice, so it’s likely the safest option, but it’s nearly twice the price of Grødris. So, you might find yourself debating whether to go for Sushi Rice or Grødris.

To see if there’s really a difference, I decided to do an experiment!　

Let me share the results in another post!😉