Since my husband bought good soba from Nagano, I decided to make sekihan. In Japan, we have varieties of cooked rice and sekihan is one of them. When I was a kid, my mom often made it. Now, it's my turn, and I often cook it for my parents. My grandson loves my homemade sekihan too. The glutinous rice I use for sekihan is from one of my friends who has grown organic rice. While organic rice is easy to find, organic glutinous rice is quite rare , so I truly appreciate her generosity .

Since I took some photos while making sekihan, I'd love to share them with you.

First, place the red beans into a pan with water and add salt. Then, boil it for 8 minutes.

Add more water and continue boiling for another 45 minutes.

When the beans become soft enough, remove them from the heat.

Separate the beans from the red cooking water. Don't throw the red water away because we use it later.

Rinse and soak the glutinous rice in water for an hour. Then, cook it together with the red beans, salt, sake and the red cooking water.

Ta-da! It's quite simple but delicious.

For some reason, sekihan is traditionally served with black sesame and salt as a topping, so, I always follow that custom. The combination of sekihan and soba is wonderful. I think they help each other to make their flavors better. I also added nozawanazuke (Japanese pickles) to the meal too.

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