Sekihan (赤飯, celebratory red bean rice)

Red rice announces itself before the meal begins. A small mound of sekihan on a tray says birth, first school day, birthday, wedding, some good turn in the house. It isn't sweet, and it isn't decorated. Mochigome (glutinous rice) carries the celebration by taking on the pink liquor from azuki, or sasage in Kantō, then meeting a pinch of gomashio at the table.

The dish looks ceremonial enough to make a home cook stiffen. Don't. The work is washing, soaking, simmering the beans gently, and steaming the rice until the grains are tender but still spring back under the teeth. The one detail that decides it is the bean liquor. Cook the beans only until their skins hold, save the red cooking water, and let the rice absorb it before and during steaming. That color is not dye. It is the ingredient speaking, which is why we don't rush it.

Use mochigome for the real chew; ordinary short-grain rice alone won't give the same body. If you must lighten it, replace only a small part with uruchimai (regular Japanese short-grain rice), and say plainly what you changed. Sekihan belongs beside a meal rather than under sauce, so keep it restrained: a neat mound, a little black sesame salt, and space around it. Honmono, in this case, is quiet enough to fit in your hand.