Onigiri

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Onigiri also is known as omusubi in Japan and is simply Japanese rice balls. They are a cooked plain Japonica short-grain rice made into a.

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transfer your data to the United States or other countries; and. process and share your data so that we and third parties may serve you with personalized ads, subject to your choices as described above and in.Prep 30 m.Cook 20 m.Ready In 1 h 15 m. Place rice in a bowl with fresh water. Stir until water becomes cloudy; drain and rinse. Repeat with fresh water until water no longer clouds, 2 or 3 times more. Bring 1 1/4 cups water, rice, and salt to a boil in a saucepan; reduce heat to low.

Cover and simmer, lifting lid no more than once, until water is absorbed, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside to finish cooking, about 10 minutes more. Remove cover and cool rice until no longer hot to the touch, about 15 minutes. Mix tuna, mayonnaise, and pepper together in a bowl until no large chunks remain. Arrange nori strips on a serving platter. Lay a 10-inch sheet of plastic wrap on a work surface. Place 1/2 cup cooked rice in the center, form a well in the middle, and fill well with 1 teaspoon tuna mixture.

Top with another 1/2 cup rice. Gather edges of plastic wrap together over rice mixture, twist together to tighten, and shape rice mixture into a pyramid shape. Remove plastic wrap and gently place onto nori strip, with nori edges protruding (for use as handles when eating). Repeat with remaining rice and tuna mixture.

O-nigiri (お握り or 御握り; おにぎり), also known as o-musubi (お結び; おむすび), nigirimeshi (握り飯; にぎりめし), rice ball, is a Japanese food made from white rice formed into triangular or cylindrical shapes and often wrapped in nori (seaweed). Traditionally, an onigiri is filled with pickled ume (umeboshi), salted salmon, katsuobushi, kombu, tarako, or any other salty or sour ingredient as a natural preservative. Most Japanese convenience stores stock their onigiri with various fillings and flavors. There are even specialized shops which only sell onigiri to take out. Due to the popularity of this trend in Japan, onigiri has become a popular staple in Japanese restaurants worldwide.

Despite common misconceptions, onigiri is not a form of sushi and should not be confused with the type of sushi called nigirizushi or simply nigiri. Onigiri is made with plain rice (sometimes lightly salted), while sushi is made of rice with vinegar, sugar and salt.^[1] Onigiri makes rice portable and easy to eat as well as preserving it, while sushi originated as a way of preserving fish.

History[edit]

In Murasaki Shikibu's 11th-century diary Murasaki Shikibu Nikki, she writes of people eating rice balls.^[2][3] At that time, onigiri were called tonjiki and often consumed at outdoor picnic lunches.^[4] Other writings, dating back as far as the seventeenth century, state that many samurai stored rice balls wrapped in bamboo sheath as a quick lunchtime meal during war, but the origins of onigiri are much earlier even than Lady Murasaki. Before the use of chopsticks became widespread, in the Nara period, rice was often rolled into a small ball so that it could be easily picked up. In the Heian period, rice was also made into small rectangular shapes known as tonjiki so that they could be piled onto a plate and easily eaten.

From the Kamakura period to the early Edo period, onigiri was used as a quick meal. This made sense as cooks simply had to think about making enough onigiri and did not have to concern themselves with serving. These onigiri were simply balls of rice flavored with salt. Nori did not become widely available until the Genroku era in the mid-Edo period, when the farming of nori and fashioning it into sheets became widespread.

Mass manufacturing[edit]

In the 1980s, a machine that made triangular onigiri was devised. Rather than rolling the filling inside, the flavoring was put into a hole in the onigiri and the hole was hidden by nori. Since the onigiri made by this machine came with nori already applied to the rice ball, over time the nori became moist and sticky, clinging to the rice.

A packaging improvement allowed the nori to be stored separately from the rice. Before eating, the diner could open the packet of nori and wrap the onigiri. The use of a hole for filling the onigiri made new flavors of onigiri easier to produce as this cooking process did not require changes from ingredient to ingredient. Modern mechanically wrapped onigiri are specially folded so that the plastic wrapping is between the nori and rice to act as a moisture barrier. When the packaging is pulled open at both ends, the nori and rice come into contact and is eaten together. This packaging is commonly found for both triangular onigiri and rolls (細巻き).

Rice[edit]

Synergia logowanie. Usually, onigiri is made with boiled white rice, though it is sometimes made with different varieties of cooked rice, such as:

• O-kowa or kowa-meshi (sekihan): glutinous rice cooked or steamed with vegetables (red beans)
• Maze-gohan (lit. 'mixed rice'): cooked rice mixed with preferred ingredients

Fillings[edit]

Umeboshi, okaka, or tsukudani have long been frequently used as fillings for onigiri. Generally, onigiri made with pre-seasoned rice is not filled with ingredients. Plain (salt only) onigiri is called shio-musubi.

Typical fillings are listed below.

• Dressed dishes: tuna with mayonnaise(シーチキン), shrimp with mayonnaise, negitoro (ネギトロ) etc.
• Dried fish: roasted and crumbled mackerel (鯖), Japanese horse mackerel (鰺), etc.
• Fried foods: Small sized tempura, cutlet
• Kakuni: dongpo pork
• Dried food: okaka, etc.
• Processed roe: mentaiko(明太子), tarako(たらこ), tobiko, caviar, etc.
• Shiokara: squid, shuto, etc.
• Tsukudani: nori, Hypoptychus dybowskii (小女子), Venerupis philippinarum (浅蜊), etc.
• Pickled fruit and vegetables: umeboshi, takana, nozawana etc.
• Miso: Sometimes mixed with green onion or spread over and roasted

See also[edit]

• Arancini, the Italian dish of fried, breadcrumb coated rice balls, with various fillings
• Cifantuan, Shanghainese rice balls, commonly eaten for breakfast
• Ketupat, Indonesian and Malaysian method of cooking, packing, and preserving rice into woven coconut leaves
• Lemper, an Indonesian dish made of glutinous rice wrapped in banana leaves, filled with chicken, fish or meat floss
• Lo mai gai, the Chinese method of presenting filled glutinous rice in lotus leaves
• Puso, Filipino method of cooking, packing, and preserving rice into woven coconut leaves
• Spam musubi, the Hawaiian food of grilled Spam attached to a block of rice with dried seaweed
• Zongzi or bakcang, glutinous rice with fillings wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves

References[edit]

1. ^Murata, Yoshihiro; Kuma, Masashi; Adrià, Ferran (2006). Kaiseki: the exquisite cuisine of Kyoto's Kikunoi Restaurant. Kodansha International. p. 162. ISBN4-7700-3022-3.
2. ^Ikeda, Kikan; Shinji Kishigami; Ken Akiyama (1958). Koten Bungaku Taikei 19: Makura no Sōshi, Murasaki Shikibu Nikki. Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten. p. 455. ISBN4-00-060019-2.
3. ^Hasegawa, Masaharu; Yūichirō Imanishi (1989). Shin Koten Bungaku Taikei 24: Tosa Nikki, Kagerō Nikki, Murasaki Shikibu Nikki, Sarashina Nikki. Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten. p. 266. ISBN4-00-240024-7.
4. ^A Taste of Japan, Donald Richie, Kodansha, 2001, ISBN4-7700-1707-3

External links[edit]

• Media related to Onigiri at Wikimedia Commons