Cooking Tips: Rice Balls!

Just about a month ago, I was doing my very first food panel at Otakon. As luck would have it, I wasn’t able to do the rice balls I had in mind. Fruits Basket was where I first learned of rice balls and that’s also when I became interested in learning how to make them. If you are just beginning to have an interest in Asian cuisine, you couldn’t possibly pick an easier dish. The ingredients and equipment are easy to find. Here’s what you need:

Ingredients:

4 cups Short Grain Rice (Cooked)

Salted water in a bowl

3 Nore (Seaweed) Sheets

5 Pickled Plum (Traditional)

Sesame seeds (optional)

Equipment:

Rice cooker

Nore sheet cutters (optional)

All you do is pick up a handful of rice, making sure to wet your hands first, as the rice can be sticky. Make an indention with your thumb in the center so that you can make a “well” for the filling. Once you put in the filling, you can add a little more rice or proceed to shape the rice into a ball or triangle with your hands. The Nore sheet is sliced in half vertically (short end to short end) or for a little change and fun, you can use Nore sheet cutters to cute the Nore into different shapes.  Apply the cut Nore sheet to the outside of your rice ball, making sure to dampen it slightly so that it can stick to the rice.

The point is to have fun while cooking and the articles that will be coming out will show you how to take classic dishes you’ve seen in anime and in a sense “flip it on it’s end”, personalizing it to your own taste and flare. I’ll show you first the correct way of making it, then in the following article I’ll flip it and show you other ways the dish can be made.

So how about those rice balls? Think you’re ready for a revamped version? How does a “dessert” rice ball sound to you? Stay tuned for the next article my fellow otakus!

♥Tsuki