Onigiri ! The most common Japanese food of all xxx

Hello to the world ! It’s Mako and Seung A.

Today, I (M) want to share about a very common food in Japan… Onigiri !!!

What is a “Onigiri” !???

It is Japan’s famous “Rice ball “- the seaweed wrapped around the riceball (triangle or circle shaped). Loved among the soul food for the whole population in Japan!

The origin of Onigiri in the Heian period (1987-) and the inspiration was from a food called “Tonjiki” the simple version of the riceball eaten now. In the middle of Edo period it became popular among many citizen, when the rectangular nori(seaweed) became common and people began to wrap it around the riceball and that enabled people to carrying around it and eat it with no messy hands. Thus lend this to convenience and more people to started eating it until present where it is still very popular eaten mostly for lunch.

 Where do we find it ?

It was firstly most commonly eaten as a packed lunch (homemade), however buying them in convenience stores* have become usual. Also, there are still official shops like, rice shops that sell rice balls too.

*Every convenience store has a onigiri corner (shelf) that contain around 10- 20 varieties of onigiri. But the popular tastes are sold out quite soon. And costs are around $1- $2.5.

• 具 = Gu (ingredients)

The diversity of Onigiri is one of the reasons why it is popular. We all tend to have our favorite Onigiri Gu that we either make or buy and eat.

The popular ones are …

Tunamayo (Tuna and mayonnaise), Umeboshi (Japanese salty and sour flavored pickled plum), Sake (salmon), Konbu etc.The unusual? but popular one is Karaage (chicken)!

Additionaly …

Not just the Gu that makes the diversity of Onigiris.There are many types of Onigiris such as

• Yaki onigiri: toasted(Yaki) with soy sauce flavor.
• Nikumaki onigiri: roasted and flavored meat wrapped round the riceball
• Furikake onigiri: rice mixed with Furikake(tasty power of many varieties).

• 海苔 = Nori (seaweed)

As I said in above, the whole aim of the use of nori is to not get messy hands.

However, there is still one more thing to talk about nori which …

Pari Pari nori VS Shittori nori

what’s different? which is better??

So there are basically two types of nori texture,

Pari Pari*crispy or Shittori*dampish(moistened)

Homemade Onigiri tends to become Shittori nori because the nori is wrapped around the hot/ warm rice ball for so long and the heat makes the nori Shittori. And some people love this.

One the other hand,  Pari Pari nori is said to taste better because the crispy texture gives the fresh taste the seaweed itself. This is why convenience store onigiris have a plastic film that separates the nori and riceball until you eat it, and even for homemade ones too, we wrap the seaweed and riceball separately so that we can wrap it before just before eating.

shiitori nori                                       paripari nori

＊Look carefully at the seaweed / nori it’s easy to tell the difference

4 steps for making a “Sankaku Onigiri”

the most common (Sankaku)Triangle shaped Onigiri

1. prepare a bowl containing cold water (colder than the hand temp) and wet your hands so that the rice doesn’t stick

2. Put some salt onto your palms: for the taste and sterilization.
3. Put rice onto your palm *Warm rice

4. Make a hole in the middle for the space of the ingredient, put in the ingredient, and  cover the ingredient from the rice around it and start making the triangle shape*Make a soft “C”shape with both hands and by turning the rice ball around and arranging the shape, 3 or 4 times of repetition will make a soft nice triangle shaped rice ball
   
5. >>> Finished

Onigiri’s Future

These days onigiris have been developed, many companies have been tring to reduce the hardness in making, such processes of making its shape, getting messy hands etc.

E.g.

onigiri cases

• plastic ones … protects the shape ruining

• silicon ones...

• No need of messing up your hands, inside the silicon case you just put in the rice and ingredients and its made!
• Also, you can make a couple and store them by freezing and heat them up when eating.

Also, more and more varieties of onigiris have come out and has given us many surprises and excitement.

E.g.

• Collaboration with instant cup noodle companies (riceball tasting the noodle flavor)

• Character onigiri:

 

Mostly common for children's packed lunches, to entertain their lunches mums make cute characters out of onigiri.

Onigiri has been instrumental in Japan society, and I still want onigiri to be respectively eaten because I feel like it is one traditional food that we don’t pay that much attention in daily life, but is always around us supporting our life.

I am looking forward for the new creative ideas in the future, and I want more people from around the world to know about about the fabulosity of onigiri!

Just eat one and you’ll understand what I’m saying ! Hope you try the recipe out !

Thanks for reading xxx

The next post will be about, Korean food … “Pingsu”- Korean shaved ice !

It will be posted next week, so look forward to it !