Categories: Japanese, picnic, rice

Ingredients

• Japanese white rice, properly cooked
• Salt
• Water
• Fillings of your choice
• Seaweed

Directions

1. Gather your tools: sturdy plastic wrap, small bowl or teacup that is the size you want your rice balls to be, rice scoop, plate to put finished onigiri

2. Line the small bowl or teacup with a piece of plastic wrap that’s big enough to hang well over the sides. Press the plastic down into the cup with your fingers.

3. Sprinkle the inside of the cup with a little water. Shake out the excess into the sink.

4. Sprinkle the inside of your wetted, plastic-lined cup with salt, turning the cup so the sides get sprinkled too. Shake out any excess salt.

5. Fill the cup with rice up to the brim. No need to press down; just fill it loosely.

6. Poke a hole in the middle of the rice, about halfway down in depth, with your finger.

7. Poke your filling of choice in the hole – about 1/2 a tablespoon or so.

8. Lightly press the rice over the filling.

9. Gather up the ends of the plastic wrap.

10. Twist and squeeze, pushing out any excess air. Twist tightly to form a ball. The squeezing is critical for ensuring that the salt sinks into the surface, and for making sure that the rice grains stick together enough so that the ball will not disintegrate when you bite into it.

11. At this point, if you just want round onigiri you can squeeze and press a bit and you’re done! If you want triangular rice balls, you just need to squeeze a little differently.

12. Form an L shape with one hand and make three corners on the ball… Use the other hand to turn the ball and squeeze back to front. Squeeze, turn, squeeze. Practice makes perfect!

13. If you’re going to bring the onigiri on a picnic, just leave it in the plastic wrap, and bring along the nori separately; wrap the onigiri with the crisp nori just as you’re going to eat it. If you’re going to eat the onigiri right away, you can re-use the piece of plastic wrap for all the onigiri balls you make.

14. Potential fillings:

15. -umeboshi

16. -umekaka (bonito flakes mixed with umeboshi and soy sauce)

17. -Japanese style pickles

18. -salt cured cooked salmon (shake)

19. Alternative Ending:

20. The rather burned looking onigiri on the top right in the photo above is a yaki onigiri, or toasted onigiri, made of brown rice (genmai). It’s actually ‘toasted’ in a hot dry non-stick frying pan until the surface rice grains get brown and toasty, then brushed on both sides with soy sauce. This is a great way to revive onigiri that’s gone a bit dry on the outside. You can put a little bit of sesame oil in the pan to add even more flavor. Brown rice onigiri is especially good as yaki onigiri, since the toasting really brings out the nutty flavor. You can also toast the onigiri in a toaster oven; toast first, then brush with soy sauce, and toast a bit more until your house smells like a giant rice cracker.

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