Recipe: Sesame Crusted Rice Patties

Sesame Crusted Rice Patties

Makes 6 patties

Sesame Crusted Rice Patties If you're one who can't resist a potato latke, you might find yourself making lots of rice to have leftovers and turn the cooked rice into these sesame-crusted patties. The unorthodox, but not unheard of, wheat flour binding, as in latkes, provides essential flavor as well as cohesion for the rice grains.

1-1/2 cups basic steamed rice, warm or reheated
1 tablespoon flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 large or 2 small scallions, trimmed and minced
1 tablespoon sesame seeds, preferably black
Vegetable oil for frying

Place the rice, flour, salt, and scallions in a medium bowl. with wet hands, mix until well blended. Form the mixture into 6 patties, rewetting your hands as you go to keep the rice from sticking. Sprinkle both sides of the patties with sesame seeds, set them on a plate, and let rest at room temperature for 1 hour.

When ready to cook, pour a small amount of oil, more than enough to coat the pan but not so much as to float the patties, into a frying pan and heat until beginning to smoke. Place as many patties as will fit in a single uncrowded layer in the pan. Fry over medium-high heat until lightly golden, about 1 minute. Turn and fry until golden on the other side, about 1 minute more. Transfer to a platter and continue until all the patties are fried. Serve right away.

Buy the Book!

The Vegetarian Table: Japan
By Victoria Wise
Chronicle Books, July 1998
Paperback, $16.95
132 pages, color photographs throughout
ISBN: 0-8118-1565-X
Recipe reprinted by permission.