Silver Case

While in Tokyo, Ling visited Kappabashi District bought me some onigiri molds and a hangiri for preparing Japanese sushi rice. A hangiri is a round, shallow, flat-bottomed bowl made of cypress woood an bound wtih copper bands. It helps quickly dissipate extra moisture and evenly cools the rice. Tonight I used it to mix in the furiake for my onigiri.

Onigiri are essentially triangular rice balls mixed with flavorings and fillers often wrapped in crispy nori or grilled with some sesame oil then brushed with  shoyu.

Using my molds I made onigiri tonight and I used a new bottle of furikake (a mixture of sesame seeds, bonito flakes, seaweed, and other seasonings, often including, apparently, msg). Tonight’s furikake was great; it had wasabi mixed in it (japanese horseradish). I don’t care for the noxious nose of wasabe, but this was just enough of a hint only to be nice smell with none of the ammonia-like punch. Onigiri fillings? Zapped some unagi (eel) from the freezer, some pickles, and another really nice garnish, some sort of preserved sea kelp with fish roe. They were the nicest onigiri I’ve made yet.

I also grilled one onigiri in a pan with some sesame oil. It was pretty nice, although I wish I had brushed on more shoyu before eating it.
I enjoyed this furikake so much that sometime I’m going to make my own.
That was the extent of my cooking this week, riceballs and liquifying some fruit in a food processor to mix with seltzer water. I brought home some Christmas wines from work, and briefly considering making some sort of braised beef recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but didn’t really have the mood or the appetite for an all-afternoon kitchen job.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 21st, 2007 at 10:18 pm and is filed under Food, Japan.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.