Onigiri – the rice ball – Japanese Soul Food
Onigiri
Hi. I’m Yukako who lives in the northern part of Europe, and teach and tell people about Japanese traditional culture such as tea ceremony, kimono, etc. offline and online.
Today I would like to introduce “Onigiri (a rice ball)”, which is widely recognized as one of Japanese soul foods.
I love onigiri! Warm rice is wrapped with a nori sea weed!! It’s really simple, but you can never stop grabbing and putting it into your mouth! This is one of the major things you will miss while you are outside of Japan.
But, as you see it’s simple, so you also can make it at home!! I will give you some helpful tips to choose “fillings” here.
In onigiri, we usually put salmon (sake), salted plum (umeboshi), etc., however, we still have more varieties! I hope you can find your favorite ones below.
Japan is blessed with sea foods, so onigiri is not exception. When making onigiri, we use sea food as fillings.
Salmon is a major example to be used as filling. A piece of baked salmon is put into, and is called “Shake onigiri”. You also can find salmon roe (Ikura), salted cod roe (Tarako), tuna (Maguro) as sea food fillings. However, we also have vegetarian options. There are pickled mustard leaves (Takana), soy sauce caramelized sea weeds (Kombu), salted pickled plum (Umeboshi), etc.
When you making onigiri, please remember to put a pinch of salt on your palms. So it makes onigiri taste better!
You also can use roasted sesame seeds, red perilla powder as extra flavor!
If you make it at home, you can bring onigiri as your lunch!! How cool is that!!