Our preferred Japanese rice is Shinmei Akafuji Koshihikari Rice from Ishikawa Prefecture (the capital of which is Kanazawa, where we had a fabulous few days in 2016), we get it from the Japan Centre. It's not exactly cheap, but it is delicious, with a warm, creamy flavour and a lovely chewy texture, and it’s especially good for Donburi. It can be hard work. Wing Yip also sells some excellent sushi rice

200g Japanese rice

1 tspn sugar

½ tspn salt

1 – 2 tspns rice vinegar to taste

• Put the rice into a big bowl. Add plenty of water to the bowl then gently stir and mix the rice with your hand. When the water becomes cloudy with starch sieve it away. Repeat this step up to 5 times or until the water becomes clear. After washing the rice soak the rice for at least 30 minutes

• Put the rice and 260mls of water into a medium sized saucepan and put on the stove at maximum heat until the water boils. Once the water boils, turn down the heat to low and let the rice simmer for 15 minutes with the lid on

• Once the rice has simmered, remove the sauce pan from the stove, take the lid off, put a clean tea towel over it, put the lid back on and leave the rice to steam, off the heat, for a further 10 minutes. Take the lid off and leave to cool for 5 minutes

• Spread the rice out in the big bowl. Mix the sugar, salt and vinegar till the sugar and salt are dissolved and sprinkle over the rice. It’s now ready to be used for sushi, sashimi or, one of our favourites, Donburi