Recipe : Japanese Onigiri

Quite unintentionally we had a Japanese theme weekend. We watched Bushido man as part of the Leeds Film Festival, and munched on Japanese sweeties.

We made Onigiri for lunch on Saturday. They are filled rice balls which are eaten cold. They are ideal for packed lunches and can be filled with a variety of ingredients. We made ours with tuna mayonnaise. Makes a change from the same old sandwich doesn't it?

Tuna may onigiri

Ingredients

• Sushi rice, cooked and cooled for left to cool for around 30 minutes
• Tin of tuna in oil
• mayonnaise
• Nori (optional)

Method

• Make up your tuna mayonnaise mixture.
• Wet your hands with salted water and scoop a handful of sushi rice. Make into a ball shape and then create a deep crater with your thumb. 
• Now push in some of your filling taking care not to overfill. Add a little bit more rice to seal the hole.
• Wrap nori (seaweed) around your onigiri and place in your lunch box (or Bento box if you're lucky enough to have one). The nori keeps your hands rice-free and keeps the rice ball in its shape.

I eschewed the traditional triangle for something more.... Hamster-ish.

Here's a nice instructional video I found on Youtube.