Onigiri

Warm rice pressed into a triangle with wet salted hands, firm outside and loose inside.

Fish, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains fish.

Ingredients

• 500 g Japanese short grain rice
• 600 ml water
• 2 teaspoons salt, for the hands
• 4 sheets nori
• 150 g filling -- salted salmon, umeboshi or tuna mayonnaise

Method

1. FIRM OUTSIDE, LOOSE INSIDE, and that is the whole skill. Three or four firm presses shape the outside into a shell that holds; squeezing it repeatedly compacts the middle into a dense lump. It should hold together when carried and fall apart in the mouth.
2. WET SALTED HANDS, EVERY TIME. A bowl of water and a dish of salt beside you: wet both palms, rub a pinch of salt between them, then shape. Dry hands tear the rice; unsalted hands give a bland crust, because this is the only salt the rice gets.
3. Rinse the rice until the water runs nearly clear, 4 or 5 changes, then drain 30 minutes before cooking.
4. Cook it, then let it stand 10 minutes covered.
5. SHAPE IT WARM, NOT HOT AND NOT COLD. Too hot to handle and you will press too lightly; cold and the grains no longer stick to each other at all.
6. A handful of rice in a cupped palm, a dent pressed in the middle, the filling in, and more rice over to cover it.
7. Form the triangle with the other hand bent at a right angle as a mould: press, rotate a third, press, rotate, press. Three turns is enough.
8. THE NORI GOES ON AT THE LAST MOMENT if you want it crisp, or at the start if you want it soft -- both are correct and it is worth deciding rather than discovering.
9. Wrap individually if they are being carried. Pressed together in a box they fuse.
10. Never refrigerate them. Cold hardens the starch and no amount of warming brings it back.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Japan · All recipes