Cooking: How to Make Onigiri

Hi, today I want to share my recipe. Well, I know I said I didn’t really like cooking. I really don’t, but it doesn’t mean I can’t cook, and to survive and save money, somehow I must cook, so let me share some recipes for some of the food that I can proudly make. LoL

But, oh, before that, if you actually read my blog, could you please leave some comments? My friend who helped me manage this blog told me that I do get some readers, but it’s hard to believe ’cause almost all comments I received are spam comments offering viagra, insurance, or writing-essay service 🙁 Also, do you think I should post more often? Sometimes scheduling one post in a week is kinda weird because it makes it look like my topic is kinda outdated…

But, anyway, here we go.

Onigiri (Tuna-Salmon)
Well, I know I’m not Japanese, so this should not be my specialty, but damn, seeing how much I watch anime, Japanese movies and doramas, let’s just say I’m quite confident with my skills in making Onigiri 😌

First, what you need are:

• Freshly cooked rice. By freshly, I mean it’s still hot/warm. Or if u have leftover rice, maybe you can heat it up in the microwave first. This is important for two reasons: 1) Personally I think warm/hot rice is tastier, and 2) it’s easier to shape. About the kind of rice, I can’t really recommend it. I guess any rice should do? I mean, when I’m at home in Indonesia I hardly bought rice ’cause my parents are farmers, so we kinda eat the rice that we grow, and I don’t always know what kind of rice he grows since it always changes. But here in the US, my favorite rice is Jasmine. So maybe you want to look into that.
• Nori or seaweed sheet/paper. Not sure how you call it, but I know it as nori. Actually I’m not sure if there’s a special nori to make onigiri, but what I’ve got is nori for sushi, so I kinda have to cut it into smaller pieces.
• Furikake or bonito flakes. The one I’ve got is Salmon Furikake. Actually this is the first time I bought it so it’s kinda experimental for me.
• Tuna. Well, I know it should be salmon since I’m using Salmon Furikake, but, well, Salmon is expensive and I’m the type who uses whatever is available there. This can of tuna, I got it for free from my campus pantry, so let’s just use it. Also, I can’t really eat raw fish, so just to make sure I cooked it by steaming it along with the rice when I was cooking the rice. You can add some salt too and mix it so it doesn’t taste too bland. Also, normally, at home, I would use banana leaves to wrap it. It’s healthier and more environmental-friendly, right? Also cheaper, well, actually it’s free because I can just take it right from the banana trees in the backyard, but in the US it’s different so I used the aluminum foil because banana leaves are quite expensive here, not worth it 😝 Well, remember this principle: Make use of whatever is available. Also, if we don’t like something, we can try to change it; if we can’t change it, we should learn to adjust and accept it. So let’s just do that and not complicate it. (Actually I’m the one who’s complicating this. Haha Sorry, I can’t help it. Hikz) And gosh, so much for sharing a recipe. LoL
• Salt. You’ll need salt. Again, whatever salt as long as it’s salty. LoL I’ve got garlic salt from a friend, so here I’ll just use it.
• Plastic Wrap. Well, some people have shaping containers/tools to make onigiri but I don’t have the luxury so let’s just use our lovely hands, and plastic wrap so the rice doesn’t stick onto our fingers.

How to make the onigiri:

• Sprinkle a little salt onto the plastic wrap on your hand. See pics.
• Press the rice countless times and make a thin wide shape. You’ve gotta press the rice until the salt gets spread with the whole rice and not just in one area. I mean, you don’t want to eat the onigiri and find it bland in one bite and then too salty on the next bite, so make sure to mix it. Also, this step is important so that the onigiri doesn’t break easily later. But, oh, in Indonesian, we use “dikepal-kepal” to illustrate how we shape the rice. Haha Sorry, being a multilingual speaker makes me a “bye-lingual” speaker too. LoL
• Put the tuna and furikake/bonito flakes in the middle of the rice. And, oh, by the way, tuna is just an option, if u want to replace it with cooked chicken or ground beef, that’s also okay. Be creative 😝
• Cover the edges to cover the middle part. If it’s not enough, you can add extra rice to cover it. Then shape it into triangles. Well, actually it doesn’t have to be triangle, but the original shapes (or rather, the ones that I often saw) are triangular, so let’s just follow the conservative way 😝
• Stick the nori in the bottom part. You can also decorate it as you like. I’m not good at decorating stuff since I’m not that artsy, but anyway, I tried.
• Your onigiri is ready to show off on social media eat. Also, don’t forget to drink some juice. I love fruit juices/smoothies, so I love to make it. (Actually, it’s more because I find it easier to consume the fruit that way. And, you know how to make fruit juice/smoothies, don’t you? It’s just fruit+water+(sugar)+(condensed milk) and then you just blend them all together. Easy.)

So, well, will you try to make it? ^^

PS: Actually I wrote three recipes, but somehow it got too long, so maybe it’s better to share one recipe at one time in one post. I’ll schedule the next two recipes to be posted on the same day next week and the week after. Well, of course, I still have my other posts scheduled on weekends as usual too. So, don’t miss it 😉