Summertime is the season for fresh edamame — green, immature soybeans. While you can get flash-frozen edamame year round, nothing beats the taste of beans straight from the pod.
The quintessential way to eat edamame is to simply boil them in salted water while still in their pods and squeeze them into your mouth with your teeth (an essential appetizer for cold beer). But there are many other ways to enjoy edamame. You can use the shelled, cooked beans in salads and as a garnish where you might use green peas. I also like to take advantage of the pods themselves, which are packed with flavor, by simmering them gently to extract a dashi stock. This is what I have done for this simple, yet delicious, rice dish, which has even more umami from konbu seaweed.
While you can eat it as a side, this rice also makes great onigiri (rice balls). Simply make them with plenty of salt on your hands, or mix some finely shredded shio-konbu (konbu cooked in soy sauce), which is available in the jarred condiments section of the supermarket, into the rice.