Sort of Asian rice salad

By SallySmo

Ingredients

• Cooked and almost-completely-cooled Jasmine rice (usually 4 cups or so)
• Dark sesame oil
• Rice wine
• Rice wine vinegar
• Toasted pine nuts
• Diced fresh ginger
• Finely diced purple onion
• Chopped cilantro
• Salt
• Pepper
• Cooked shrimp (optional)

Preparation

Step 1

Prepare the rice as you normally would--about 2 parts water to one part rice. It helps if the rice is slightly drier than usual, but don't take this chance if you're not really comfortable with cooking rice. The rice will cool more evenly if you either spread it out (like sushi chefs do) or turn in over in the bowl every now and then to let the steam out.
While the rice cools, make the dressing. You want to end up with somewhere around 3/4 cup of liquid.
Combine a little of the dark sesame oil with a splash of the rice wine vinegar. Round out the quantity with the rice wine--it can be slightly sweet but not too much so. Finely dice the ginger and purple onion and add them to the liquid along with the toasted pine nuts and chopped cilantro. Normally, about a thumb-sized piece of ginger and 1/2 of a normal size onion is about right. As for the pine nuts, maybe 1/2 to 3/4 cup.
Make sure the dressing is well combined, and fold it into the warm-but-not-hot rice. Don't work it too hard, or the rice will break down. Once the grains of rice are coated and separate, stop stirring.
This can go out as-is, or a nice serving option is to line a large bowl (or several small ones for individual servings) with cooked and cool shrimp. (I steam mine over water with Zatarin's liquid boil and cool them with ice and running cool water. This gives the shrimp a little extra "snap" they don't get when they're immersed in a boil.) Once you have the shrimp in place, pack the bowl(s) with the rice mixture. Refrigerate, and when you're ready to serve, it will unmold on a plate and keep its shape.

-John Trickett