bento

Shell-shaped sushi (Hamaguri-zushi) for Girls' Festival

maki — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:52:50 +0100

From the archives, originally posted March 2, 2007. These delicately colored sushi are a great way to use usuyaki tamago. I know I’ve been re-posting things from the archives a lot lately, but I hope you’ll forgive me - I’m moving tomorrow! In any case, I hope you’ll give these delicate sushi a try, especially if you have daughters or granddaughters.

The 3rd of March is Momo no sekku or Peach Day in Japan. Peach blossoms usually start blooming around this time, signifying the coming of spring. It’s also the day for hina matsuri, the Doll Festival or Girls’ Festival. Households with daughters display hina ningyou-, traditional dolls that represent a princess’s wedding procession. This is because the ultimate happiness expected for a girl was for her to make a fruitful and comfortable marriage. Nowadays girls may be expected to do other things besides become happy wives, but on this day at least traditions still hold strong.

In Japan there is a long standing stereotype that girls and women like very sweet things, while manly men like less sweet and bitter things. So, for Hina Matsuri the guests are served sweet things like amazake (a very thick non-alcoholic hot drink made from the lees of sake, rather like eggnog in color and cloying sweetness), hishimochi (tri-colored mochi cake) and okoshi (colored sweetened puffed rice). Although there were three girls in our house, none of us liked amazake at all. However, my mother often made some kind of sushi for Hina Matsuri, which we really loved.

Here are two kinds of very pretty, girlie sushi in feminine pink, yellow and white with a touch of green. These colors fit the theme of Hina Matsuri perfectly: the traditional hishimochi is colored white, pink (or light red) and green.

The first is hamaguri-zushi or clam sushi, pictured here. It’s supposed to look like a clam, but to me it looks just as much like a little yellow flower. (Hamaguri are in season in March in Japan.) It can be filled with any kind of sushi rice, but here I have made a slightly pink-tinged sushi rice with lemony smoked salmon, mitsuba or flat-leaf parsley and white sesame seeds, wrapped in a usuyaki tamago or thin omelette. It’s related to chakin-zushi, where the omelette is wrapped in a bag shape and tied, but slightly less fiddly since all you have to do is fold it into quarters.

Besides making a very pretty spring party dish (for an appetizer maybe, or as part of a buffet), these work very well as bento items too since the sushi rice has good keeping qualities, and the omelette keeps the rice from drying out. Plus you can just grab them with your hands to eat.

The second sushi is smoked salmon temari zushi - the recipe is here.

Hamaguri-zushi (clam sushi) or yellow flower sushi

The rice:

4 cups of cooked plain white rice cooked with dashi stock
1/4 cup plum vinegar or raspberry vinegar
1 1/2 Tbs. sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
About 60g/2 oz smoked salmon, finely chopped, or 2 to 3 tablespoons of salmon furikake
2 tsp. lemon juice
1 Tbs. toasted white sesame seeds
2 Tbs. chopped mitsuba or flatleaf parsley leaves

The wrapping: * usuyaki tamago using 6 eggs

Garnish:

Salmon roe (aka salmon caviar) or ikura (which are salmon eggs marinated in a soy sauce mix)

Equipment:

Small non-stick frying pan
Rice cooker (will make your life a lot easier)
A heat-resistant brush for brushing the oil onto the pan, or a wad of paper towel
Spatula to turn the omelette
Rice paddle or spatula for mixing the rice

Make the usuyaki tamago. Dissolve the cornstarch in the water. Beat the eggs lightly with a fork or chopsticks (not a whisk or it will become too bubbly) with the sugar, salt and the cornstarch/water.

Heat the small frying pan over a medium-low heat. Brush lightly with oil. Put about 1/8th cup or 3 tablespoons of the egg mixture in the pan, swirl carefully so it coats the bottom of the pan but doesn’t slosh up the sides. Hint: use the same scoop or spoon to measure equal amounts of the egg - I use a 1/4 cup measure, half filled.

Cook just until the top is barely set, then carefully pick up the omelette with the spatula and flip over. Cook for about 10 seconds just until it’s set, then flip out of the pan. The omelettes should be yellow, and not browned.

Repeat for the rest of the egg. You should end up with about 12 to 14 omelettes.

The omelettes can be made the day before and kept covered with plastic in the fridge.

Make the sushi rice the day you plan to serve it. Cook the rice following the basic instructions. Turn the hot rice out into a bowl and break up lightly with the spatula. The sushi vinegar in this case is made with a red colored vinegar, either plum or raspberry (don’t worry, this won’t make the rice taste weird). Mix together the vinegar, sugar and salt in a pan and heat until the sugar and salt are dissolved. Pour over the rice, and mix/fluff the rice until it’s all a uniform pale pink. Let cool to room temperature.

In the meantime, sprinkle the chopped up smoked salmon with the lemon juice, and let sit for at least 10 to 15 minutes.

Fold the sesame seeds, salmon, and mitsuba or parsley into the rice, trying not to smoosh the rice grains too much. Here is how the rice looks. You can just make this into small rice balls and serve too.

Assembly

Divide the rice into as many portions as you have omelettes. Put the portioned rice on one quarter of one of the omelettes.

Fold the omelette in half, then into quarters.

Turn over so the rice part is on top (the weight of the rice helps to keep it stable). Squeeze the sides a bit so the insides can be seen.

Garnish with a few salmon eggs. This is optional but makes it really pretty. You can also sprinkle a bit of mitsuba or parsley instead.

Note that you do not need dipping soy sauce for this, since the sushi itself is already flavored quite well.

Announcing Just Bento, a site about healthy, tasty bento box meals

maki — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 21:10:12 +0100

Just Bento, my new brand site dedicated to the making of bento box meals, is now officially open! It will have bento-specific recipes, tutorials and tips galore. While the majority of the bento box examples will be Japanese or Japanese-style bentos (geared and adapted for people who don’t live in Japan), there will be foods and recipes from many other cuisines too, just as on Just Hungry.

The focus is on bento lunches for busy adults, especially those who are looking to using bento lunches to regulate healthy eating habits and/or lose weight. Why? Because that’s how I use bento lunches. Late last year I made a resolution to try to lose some weight in 2007. While a lot of things I attempted in order to achieve that goal fell by the wayside, one of the things that ‘stuck’ was making bento lunches at least 2 to 3 times a week, if not more. So far, I have very slowly lost about 30 pounds (15 kg), and plan to keep going! I occasionally indulge in more luxurious and/or time-consuming bentos too, but that’s all part of keeping things fun and loose.

Time is of the essence in the morning, so every bento example will be presented with a graphical timeline besides step-by-step instructions. (See Bento no. 1 for an example). Most bentos will be take less than 30 minutes to make, and the majority will clock in at 20 minutes or under.

There are already several articles up on the site. And no, Just Hungry will not be neglected; there’ll be a lot of cross-referencing of tips, recipes and more between the sites.

(Thank you so much to everyone who has already commented on, emailed me about, or linked to the site! I’m quite overwhelmed by the response in just a few days. I hope it will become a useful site for everyone interested in bento box meals. I also hope that I’ve solved the various, eh, crashing issues too!)

Quick and spicy Chinese cabbage tsukemono or pickle (Hakusai no sokusekizuke)

maki — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:44:50 +0100

This has to be one of the easiest and tastiest ways of preparing Chinese or napa cabbage (hakusai) that I know of. All you taste is the fresh essence of the cabbage, with the heat of the red pepper and the slight twist of the orange zest.

Did I say easy? Wash and chop up the leaves, mix together the flavoring ingredients, dump all in a plastic bag, shake then massage. That’s it. It’s ready to eat right away, though the flavors to meld a bit better if you can manage to keep it in the fridge for at least an hour before eating.

I’ve used ingredients that anyone should have, even if you aren’t stocked up on typical Japanese ingredients. Adjust the amount of red pepper flakes up or down to your taste.

Quick Chinese cabbage pickles (Hakusai no sokusekizuke)

About 2 lb / 1 kg (a small whole head or half of a large head) fresh Chinese (napa) cabbage (about 6 cups cut up)
1/2 tsp vegetable stock granules (or about 1/2 a Knorr-sized stock cube)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 tsp. orange zest in thin strips
Optional: 1 tsp. lemon juice
Optional: 1 tsp. dark sesame oil

Equipment needed: a large plastic zip bag

Wash the cabbage leaves, and discard any discolored parts. Dry by spinning in a salad spinner or in several layers of paper towels. Chop up roughly.

Mix together all the dry ingredients and orange zest in a bowl. If you’re using a stock cube, crumble it up finely.

Put the cabbage in the plastic bag, and the dry ingredients + orange zest. Close the bag with plenty of air in it (so it’s like a balloon) and shake all around until the ingredients are evenly distributed. Open the bag, expel as much air as you can, and close again. Massage and toss the bag around, bruising the cabbage. Quite a lot of moisture will come out of the cabbage and melt the salt etc. Try not to burst the bag with over-enthusiastic kneading.

You can eat this right away, or leave in the refrigerator in the bag for about an hour (you can do it over night too).

To serve, drain off the excess moisture (which is delicious, but rather salty…though some people like to drink it off!). Drizzle with the optional lemon juice or sesame oil. Serve with any Japanese style meal. Makes a great bento box item.

Asparagus with black sesame sauce (asparagasu no gomayogoshi)

maki — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 14:04:33 +0100

We’re starting to see asparagus at reasonable prices again in the stores, which I’m really happy about. The ones available now come from California and Mexico, so they aren’t very food-miles-correct, but I still can’t resist buying a bunch or two. In a few weeks we’ll start seeing asparagus from a a bit closer places like Spain and France, not to mention the fat white asparagus from Germany, which are more highly prized here. I prefer green asparagus myself though.

This is green aspagarus with a ground sesame sauce, which would be called aemono (as explained in the broccoli ae recipe) if made with white sesame seeds, but since this version is made with black sesame seeds it’s called gomayogoshi, or “dirtied with sesame”. I don’t think it looks dirty - I really like the contrast of the bright green asparagus with the black sesame sauce. You can, of course, use regular white (brown) sesame seeds instead, in which case it would be called asparagasu no goma ae. Whatever color sesame seeds you use, the sweet-salty, nutty sauce compliments the nutty earthiness of asparagus very well.

I’ve included step by step instructions for grinding sesame seeds in a suribachi. You can grind up the sesame seeds in a plain mortar and pestle instead. You may be able to buy pre-ground sesame (surigoma), though that isn’t nearly as fragrant as freshly ground sesame.

It makes a great side dish, as well as a very nice bento box item.

Asparagus with black sesame sauce (asparagasu no gomayogoshi)

About 20 medium-thick asparagus stalks
3 Tbs. black sesame seeds
1 Tbs. sugar
2 tsp. mirin
2 Tbs. soy sauce

Equipment needed: a suribachi with surikogi, or mortar and pestle.

Trim the hard woody part off the base of the asparagus stalks. Cut the stalks in approximately 2 inch / 5 cm long pieces.

Bring a pan of slightly salted water to boil. Put in the asparagus stalk pieces in first, reserving the tips. Cook until bright green and still slightly crisp, a couple of minutes. Add the reserved asparagus tips and cook an additional couple of minutes. Drain, and blanch briefly in cold water. Drain well and set aside.

Roast the sesame seeds in a small dry frying pan over medium-high heat until the seeds start to pop. Immediately remove and put in the suribachi or mortar. Leave a couple of minutes to let cool.

Grind the sesame seeds. They will gradually get powdery, and will smell fantastic.

Add the sugar, and continue grinding.

Continue grinding until the sugar has disappeared into the sesame powder, and the whole looks quite grey.

Add the mirin and soy sauce, and grind to a paste.

Mix the sesame sauce with the asparagus. You may want to take a bit of care in arranging the asparagus attractively, since if you just dump it in a plate it may look a bit well, dirty. A white plate or bowl works best for this.

Notes

You can make this sesame sauce in advance and store it, well covered for up to a week in the refrigerator.

To make a longer keeping sesame paste, grind the sesame seeds even more, add sugar and a bit of salt (about 1 Tbs. of sugar and 1/8th tsp. of salt per 3 Tbs. of sesame seed). Store in a covered jar in the refrigerator. This is great on toast, and you can just add a bit of mirin and soy sauce and optionally dashi stock to make a sesame paste on the spot.

Language trivia: the term goma o suru or goma suri (to grind sesame) means to pay empty compliments to someone higher up in the ranks. It’s sort of equivalent to the English term suck up.

Broccoli with wasabi sauce (wasabi-ae)

maki — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 12:48:47 +0100

All hail the mighty broccoli. While it’s always available in the produce section, it’s one of the few fresh vegetables that haven’t been shipped halfway around the world to reach people who live in many parts of the northern hemisphere during the colder months. In the spring we even get very locally grown broccoli and its relatives like romanesco.

Broccoli can be rather boring if it’s just served steamed, boiled or, god forbid , raw. (I’m sorry, I don’t really get raw broccoli. Raw cauliflower yes, but not raw broccoli.) A way to perk up broccoli without relying on those yummy yet caloric additions like mayonnaise, cheese sauce or garlic-and-olive-oil, is to make aemono or ohitashi with them. Ohitashi is basically vegetables that have been steamed or blanched/boiled served with a sauce that contains soy sauce, often but not always a little dashi stock, and sometimes a bit of sake or mirin and sugar. Aemono uses a similar sauce, with added ingredients like ground up sesame seeds. In this recipe, the sauce contains wasabi, so it’s aemono.

As long as you have all the ingredients on hand it’s very quick to make, and very tasty. The sinus-clearing qualities of the wasabi are softened by the other ingredients in the sauce, while still giving the broccoli a nice, bright flavor.

It makes a great side dish as part of a Japanese meal, or even a salad. It’s also a very nice bento item (you may want to contain the sauce in a paper cup or its own container).

Broccoli with wasabi sauce (burokkori no wasabi ae)

4 to 5 cups (one small head) cut up broccoli, the flower part broken into small pieces, the stem part peeled and sliced thin
Salt and water for cooking
2 1/2 tsp. wasabi powder, reconstituted to a paste with a few drops of water
4 Tbs. soy sauce
2 Tbs. sake
1 Tbs. sugar or sweetener of your choice

Bring the water and salt to a boil. Cook the broccoli until it’s crisp-tender and still a bright green in color. Drain, and refresh very briefly with cold running water. (Note: you can skip this step if you’re not in a hurry and have time to cool the broccoli.)

In the meantime, mix together all the remaining ingredients except the wasabi in a small pan, and stir over a low heat until the sugar is melted. Let cool, and add the wasabi, reserving 1/2 tsp or so. Mix well until the wasabi is dissolved.

Pour the sauce over the broccoli and mix well. Serve at room temperature or chilled, optionally with a little additional wasabi on the side for people to mix into the broccoli as they eat it (if they really like wasabi).

Notes

You can, in a pinch, use frozen broccoli.

While using fresh grated wasabi root is ideal, powdered wasabi is fine for this dish.

Use less wasabi if you find it too strong.

You can turn this into a one-dish meal by adding some protein of your choice, such as blanched and cut-up tofu, or poached and shredded chicken breast. The sauce is great with either.

Basics: Tamagoyaki or Atsuyaki Tamago, Japanese sweet omelette

maki — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 14:07:13 +0100

Tamagoyaki is such a integral part of Japanese food that I am rather kicking myself for not having posted a recipe for it before here. The name tamagoyaki means “fried egg”, and the alternate name, atsuyaki tamago, means “thick fried egg”. (Some books or restaurants erroneously called it just tamago, which just means “egg”.) A slightly sweet, moist square-shaped egg concoction, tamagoyaki is a bento box staple, as well as being a popular sushi neta (topping). It’s also great as a side dish for any meal.

You don’t really need a special tamagoyaki pan for making this. A regular small non-stick frying pan will do. The one advantage of having a small tamagoyaki pan like this one is that the size is good for making small, thick tamagoyaki without using extra eggs. Conversely, a big square tamagoyaki/atsuyaki tamago pan is used for making those thick tamagoyaki served at better sushi restaurants. (Cheap sushi places use manufactured tamagoyaki, which is an abomination.) However, I’m assuming most people are likely to own a small frying pan, so that’s what I’ve used for the photos here. The one I have is an ordinary (pretty cheap) Tefal model that I got at a sale somewhere.

Once you get the hang of making the multilayers of egg, it’s very easy to do. A 2-egg tamagoyaki takes less than 5 minutes to cook, and a 4-egg one just a bit more. 4 eggs is the maximum that’s practical to cook in a 20cm / 8 inch standard frying pan.

I prefer my tamagoyaki to not be too sweet so there isn’t much sugar in this - I’ve seen recipes that add up to 3 tablespoons for 4 eggs. You can add more or less to your taste.

Tamagoyaki or Atsuyaki tamago

Halve the quantities for a 2-egg tamagoyaki

4 ‘large’ eggs
1 Tbs. sugar
1 tsp. mirin
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. light soy sauce (usukuchi shoyu); you can use regular soy sauce instead
Oil for cooking

Equipment:

20cm / 8 inch (small) non-stick frying pan
A heat resistant brush OR a wad of cotton wool or kitchen paper, for spreading the oil
1 or 2 forks, or 1 fork and a pair of chopsticks - or if you are skillful one pair of chopsticks
Sushi rolling mat
Optional: a fine-meshed sieve

Heat up the pan on medium-low heat. Make ready a small bowl of oil, and the brush or wad of cotton wool or kitchen paper.

Beat all the ingredients together with a fork or chopsticks. Don’t use a whisk since you don’t want it to get foamy.

Optionally, strain the egg mixture through a sieve to even it out. (I usually don’t bother with this step but it does make for a finer and more even egg mix.)

Brush the heated pan with a little oil. Put in about 2 to 3 tablespoons worth of egg mixture in the pan. Cook gently (lower the heat if necessary) until it’s not quite set on top, but not runny. Roll it up with a fork or chopsticks to one side of the pan.

Brush the exposed part of the pan with a little oil.

Put another couple of tablespoons of egg mixture in the pan. Spread it around, lifting the cooked egg so that the uncooked egg flows below it.

Cook until this layer is almost set, then roll the whole egg to the opposite side of where it is.

Brush the pan again with oil. Add another couple of tablespoons of egg mixture in the pan, and spread around the pan and under the cooked egg.

Keep repeating this procedure until the egg mixture is used up.

Put the tamagoyaki on a moistened sushi rolling mat, seam side down.

Roll it up tightly. If you are eating this right away you can take it out and serve immediately, but if you’re making this for an (o)bento, leave the whole roll in the mat over a raised rim plate or bowl until it’s cooled to room temperature. This allows air to pass under and over it, cooling it faster.

And here is the finished tamagoyaki. Slice with a sharp knife and enjoy. (If you just want even pieces, just leave off the ends. These usually end up in my mouth right there.)

A 2-egg omelette is just thinner, making smaller bits, but is just as good. You will only probably need 3 layers of egg for 2 eggs, so it goes quickly. The picture here shows some slices of 2-egg tamagoyaki to the left, and 4 egg tamagoyaki to the right.

Notes

If you really want a purely yellow tamagoyaki, cook it over low heat and use light soy sauce. Using light soy sauce makes your omelette slightly lighter in color, if you want to avoid any browning. But I usually just use regular soy sauce since browning doesn’t bother me. Keep in mind that light soy sauce is not lower in salt content, just lighter in color. (It’s different from low-salt soy sauce.)

Vary the flavor and look by adding finely chopped green onion or garlic chives, or small bits of nori seaweed. To achieve a black-and-yellow spiral effect, put torn pieces of nori over each almost-set egg layer before rolling.

If your tamagoyaki seems a bit too runny, you can firm it up by nuking it in the microwave for about a minute. Don’t over-nuke or you’ll end up with a firm rubbery thing.

The ideal accompiment when serving piping hot tamagoyaki is some grated daikon radish, with a tiny bit of soy sauce.

A variant of tamagoyaki is dashimaki tamago, where some dashi stock is added to the egg mixture. This makes for very thin layers, and thus requires some patience.

Smoked salmon temari zushi: Ball-shaped sushi

maki — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 19:23:33 +0100

Following up on the previous recipe for shell shaped sushi, here is another kind of sushi that’s great for parties. Temari are small cloth balls made from leftover scraps of kimono fabric, and temari zushi are meant to look like these colorful toys. You can make temari zushi with any number of things, such as thinly sliced sashimi grade fish, boiled and butterflied shrimp, thinly sliced and cooked or uncooked vegetables, and even thin slices of cheese.

For these, I’ve used thinly cut slices of pale pink smoked salmon, with tiny amount of cream cheese inside, rather in the same vein as a New York Roll - quite non-traditional but it’s a great combination. The key is to make the temari zushi on the small side since they are quite rich.

As with the hamaguri-zushi, these don’t require any soy sauce for dipping.

Smoked salmon temari zushi

4 cups of cooked plain white rice cooked with dashi stock, turned into sushi rice either by following the traditional recipe on that page, or into pink sushi rice as per the instructions on the hamaguri sushi page
8 to 12 thin slices smoked salmon
Cream cheese
Finely chopped parsley for garnish

Equipment:

Tiny bowl or small teacup with about 1/3 to 1/2 cup cup capacity
Plastic cling film

The procedure for making these is the same as for Onigiri 2.0, but even easier. A small teacup is lined with plastic wrap, then a slice of salmon, and filled with rice. Everything is gathered up and squeezed in the plastic wrap, and formed into a little ball.

Line the cup or little bowl (I used a tiny glass bowl that I use for holding small amounts of ingredients and such when cooking) with plastic cling film, then a slice of smoked salmon.

Fill with sushi rice. Poke a hole in the middle and put about 1/2 teaspoon of cream cheese in there. I used a kind with olive bits in it, which makes it even more interesting.

Gather up the cling film and twist tightly, and form into a ball. Unmold and sprinkle a tiny bit of green if desired.

If you are bringing these to a picnic or something, leave the plastic wrap on. Try to keep cool until you eat it, since this amount of smoked salmon on the outside will get nastily greasy if left too warm.

Variation

The pale pink sushi rice makes a subtle yet nice contrast to regular white sushi rice. You can make little balls alternating both, for a pretty display, to serve as a side dish or as the rice part of your bento box.

Onigiri (Omusubi) revisited: An easier way to make Japanese rice balls, step by step

maki — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 10:54:54 +0100

[Update:] See all kinds of onigiri on my new bento-only site, Just Bento.

[Another Update:] Check out the Onigiri FAQ for answers to most, if not all, your onigiri related questions!

[One more Update:] A few people are obviously not taking the time to read or follow the links suggested properly. Otherwise they would not keep asking the same question, or worse answering it wrong, over and over. So please let me repeat again:

The best rice to use for standard onigiri is the kind usually sold as Japanese rice or 'sushi rice'. It is NOT THE SAME as 'sticky rice' or 'sweet rice' or 'glutinous rice'. And no you cannot use jasmine rice for successful onigiri, the way onigiri are supposed to be! The right kind of rice, properly cooked, is not the same as the wrong kind of rice, cooked until mushy and pressed together in a gluey fashion. If you can't get a hold of Japanese rice for some reason, there are a few other rices that can be substituted. See Looking At Rice for a complete explanation. That should make things clear! (end Update)

One of the most popular entries on this site is the one about onigiri, or Japanese rice balls, which I wrote back in 2003. (A lot of people landed there searching for onigiri as portrayed in anime or manga, especially Fruits Basket...which is interesting.) It was one of the very early entries on the blog, and I gave the traditional way of making the onigiri: hot rice put on moistened and salted palms, which quickly turn red and sore because of the heat from the rice.

I've made hundreds of onigiri in the 3 years since I wrote that, because onigiri are such great portable meals for picnics, not to mention party food and late-night snacks. But let's face it, those red sore palms aren't too pleasant, and the rice grains do tend to stick all over the place. Also, portioning with the rice scooper can be a bit erratic unless you are an onigiri-making expert.

With ideas from several places including cookbooks, Japanese TV shows and my mother, this much neater method of making onigiri evolved. It requires no special molds or equipment. It ensures that all your onigiri are uniform in size. Your hands never get too hot and red. And, if you're going to bring them on a picnic or store them for eating a bit later, they're already conveniently pre-wrapped in plastic.

A word here from my mom about the most frequently asked question regarding onigiri: alternative fillings if you can't get a hold of, or don't like, the traditional fillings like umeboshi (pickled plums), tarako (salted cod roe), or katsuobushi (bonito flakes) with soy sauce. She says, "Onigiri isn't about the filling really. It's about enjoying the flavor of good rice." She has a point there. Use good rice, prepared properly, and the filling becomes secondary.

So, I present you... Onigiri 2.0 :).

Onigiri 2.0 (Easier, neater onigiri)

There are a lot of steps here, but once you have done a couple this way you will be turning out tons of rice balls in no time.

Equipment and ingredients needed:

Sturdy plastic wrap that is not so thin that it will get weak when exposed to a little heat, or too thin that you spend more time un-sticking it form itself than using it. Saran Wrap is great, or Glad. (I used a green colored wrap for the sake of photographic clarity, but you can use clear wrap of course.)
A small bowl or teacup that is the size you want your rice balls to be. I like to use small teacups so that the onigiri don't turn huge. For party-sized mini-onigiri you can use a sake cup or egg cup. The teacup used here holds about 2/3rd cup of liquid.
A rice scoop or a spoon
Properly cooked white or brown Japanese rice or "sushi" rice or uruchi-mai, NOT 'STICKY' RICE and definitely NOT JASMINE, LONG GRAIN OR OTHER RICE Please read the Looking At Rice post if you are confused about what kind of rice is best to use for onigiri.
Salt, preferably in a salt shaker (or you can just sprinkle with your fingers)
Water
Fillings of your choice
Covers of your choice such as nori seaweed
Mise en place: Make ready your teacup, a cup or bowl holding some water, salt shaker, rice, rice scoooper, fillings, plate to put the finished onigiri, and plastic wrap roll. It's easiest to do this near the sink, if you have the space.
Line the small bowl or teacup with a piece of plastic wrap that's big enough to hang well over the sides. Press the plastic down into the cup with your fingers.
Sprinkle the inside of the cup with a little water. Shake out the excess into the sink.
Sprinkle the inside of your wetted, plastic-lined cup with salt, turning the cup so the sides get sprinkled too. Shake out any excess salt.
Fill the cup with rice up to the brim. No need to press down; just fill it loosely.
Poke a hole in the middle of the rice, about halfway down in depth, with your finger.
Poke your filling of choice in the hole - about 1/2 a tablespoon or so. Here I have used traditional umeboshi.
Lightly press the rice over the filling.
Gather up the ends of the plastic wrap.
Twist and squeeze, pushing out any excess air. Twist tightly to form a ball. The squeezing is critical for ensuring that the salt sinks into the surface, and for making sure that the rice grains stick together enough so that the ball will not disintegrate when you bite into it.
At this point, if you just want round onigiri you can squeeze and press a bit and you're done! If you want triangular rice balls, you just need to squeeze a little differently.
Form an L shape with one hand and make three corners on the ball...
Use the other hand to turn the ball and squeeze back to front. Squeeze, turn, squeeze. Practice makes perfect!
And, here you have a perfectly shaped triangular onigiri.

If you're going to bring the onigiri on a picnic, just leave it in the plastic wrap, and bring along the nori separately; wrap the onigiri with the crisp nori just as you're going to eat it. If you're going to eat the onigiri right away, you can re-use the piece of plastic wrap for all the onigiri balls you make.

This method works marvelously for brown rice balls as well as white rice balls. Brown rice balls can be a bit tricky, since brown rice is not as sticky as white.

Non-traditional fillings redux

A lot of people ask about alternative fillings for onigiri. Basically anything that goes well with rice, is not too wet or oily, and is highly seasoned (read: quite salty) will work. There are several listed in the original onigiri article as well as in the comments. Remember that any filling you use must be well cooked. Here are some that have been successful for me to varying degrees:

Anything flavored teriyaki-style: chicken, pork, beef, etc., chopped fine and cooked down a bit if too sauce-y.
Chopped plain black or green olives. Salt cured ones work better than oil cured.
Char siu pork, (there is a recipe for a simplified version at the bottom of this page) chopped up small. Don't use a fatty piece of pork though, or the fat will leak out to the surface of the rice ball, which is not only rather gross but will make the grains fall apart.
Tiny little meat balls, well flavored with flavorings of your choice. Just salt and pepper do fine.
Well drained pickles. Japanese style pickles may suite best but regular Western style pickles work quite well too.

Remember also that you can have plain onigiri, flavored only with salt, to bring along as the carb component of a portable obento lunch or picnic, to eat with other things like chicken wings, boiled eggs, little meatballs on a stick, or whatever strikes your fancy.

Yaki Onigiri (Grilled onigiri)

The rather burned looking onigiri on the top right in the photo above is a yaki onigiri, or toasted onigiri, made of brown rice (genmai). It's actually 'toasted' in a hot dry non-stick frying pan until the surface rice grains get brown and toasty, then brushed on both sides with soy sauce. This is a great way to revive onigiri that's gone a bit dry on the outside. You can put a little bit of sesame oil in the pan to add even more flavor. Brown rice onigiri is especially good as yaki onigiri, since the toasting really brings out the nutty flavor. You can also toast the onigiri in a toaster oven; toast first, then brush with soy sauce, and toast a bit more until your house smells like a giant rice cracker.

(A word of clarification here: What makes this method a little different is the use of both the cup and the plastic wrap: the cup helps you produce uniformly sized onigiri, which can be an issue for onigiri neophytes, and the plastic helps to avoid the red, sore hands. It's meant to be very beginner friendly. If you or your mother/aunt/wife/friend already uses a similar method, terrific! That's just confirmation that it works, isn't it? And, if you/your mother/etc. can whip out tons of onigiri without resorting to 'gimmicks', all the more power to you. )

Before asking a general question about onigiri, please check out the Onigiri FAQ page. Chances are your answer is already there!

Update, September 2009: I am closing comments here, since the same questions keep getting asked over and over. Maybe there are too many comments for people to read through. Most if not all your onigiri questions are answered in the Onigiri FAQ. If they are still not answered, then ask your question over there. Thanks!

bento

Shell-shaped sushi (Hamaguri-zushi) for Girls' Festival

Hamaguri-zushi (clam sushi) or yellow flower sushi

Assembly

Announcing Just Bento, a site about healthy, tasty bento box meals

Quick and spicy Chinese cabbage tsukemono or pickle (Hakusai no sokusekizuke)

Asparagus with black sesame sauce (asparagasu no gomayogoshi)

Asparagus with black sesame sauce (asparagasu no gomayogoshi)

Notes

Broccoli with wasabi sauce (wasabi-ae)

Broccoli with wasabi sauce (burokkori no wasabi ae)

Notes

Basics: Tamagoyaki or Atsuyaki Tamago, Japanese sweet omelette

Tamagoyaki or Atsuyaki tamago

Notes

See also

Smoked salmon temari zushi: Ball-shaped sushi

Smoked salmon temari zushi

Variation

Onigiri (Omusubi) revisited: An easier way to make Japanese rice balls, step by step

Onigiri 2.0 (Easier, neater onigiri)

Non-traditional fillings redux

Yaki Onigiri (Grilled onigiri)