Rice Balls #

In my spare time, I have been re-watching the Rurouni Kenshin TV series, which is seriously endearing viewing if you’re into Anime. A commonly eaten food in the series is the humble rice ball, which, for animated food looks really damn good. I thought I’d attempt to make some.

I must give my thanks to the 3 hungry tummies blog, for providing some insight into how to make them.

http://3hungrytummies.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/onigiri-japanese-rice-balls.html (warning: recipe is not vegan, mine is!)

Served here with spicy tofu and buckwheat.

Ingredients (rice ball) #

• 2 cups of whole grain basmati rice
• ~ 1.2 litres of boiling water
• 2 tbsp white miso paste
• Nori

Ingredients (fillings) #

(set 1) #

• 7 mushrooms
• 2 long red chilli
• 1 cloves garlic

(set 2) #

#

• half avocado, cubed
• Japanese pickled ginger
• Japanese pickled daikon

Method #

1. prepare filling set 1 by putting ingredients in a blender and blending to a course coleslaw texture. Place in dish for later
2. place filling set 2 in a separate dish for later
3. Combine until dissolved the miso paste and the water.
4. In a rice cooker or whatever, cook the basmati rice with 3:2 ratio miso water (6 cups of water to the  2 cups of rice). Keep warm.
5.  Once cooked, lay the rice on a flat surface near the fillings, make a small bed of rice, add about 1-2tsp of filling (depending on the size of ball you want), cover with rice, then using your hands shape into a ball being sure to compact it as much as possible.
6. Repeat until you have all the balls you want
7. Cut nori into strips and place ball in it. You could make this like a sushi roll if you wanted.