Bento Box - How To Make Onigiri

Onigiri - How to Make Them Work

Here's how to make plain onigiri by hand, without too much difficulty. Once you've mastered this, you can try adding fillings and furikake to jazz up your onigiri. As my science teachers always used to tell me, read the instructions all the way through and make sure you have everything you need before you start! (And do remember to wash your hands well with soap and hot water before preparing food.)

Onigiri moulding illustrations from Naomi Kijima's Bento Boxes - Japanese Meals On the Go

1. Cook a suitable amount of rice for the number of people you want to feed. Important: do not rinse the rice before cooking! You want it to be sticky and clumpy. For this reason, Uncle Ben's and other rice varieties guaranteed not to stick together are unsuitable. White shortgrain rice is the best kind for both onigiri and sushi - in supermarkets it's often sold in a pack marked 'sushi rice,' or if you can't find that, look for 'pudding rice.' I have also been able to make onigiri with long-grain rice - it's just not as authentic, and tends to have a slightly messier appearance (grains sticking out from the surface). If you are savvy you will be using a rice cooker for this part, but if you don't mind the inconvenience, you can do it on the stove or in a microwave - follow the instructions on the rice package.

2. It's important to work with the rice while it's still warm and sticky, but let it cool a little first so you won't be scalded. Five minutes should do it. Turning the rice from the cooking container into another bowl and fluffing it with a fork or rice scoop will help it to cool slightly.

3. Fill a bowl with cold water and stir in a couple of teaspoonfuls of salt - keep this in your work area and dip your hands before beginning each onigiri. This will ensure that the rice sticks to itself, without sticking to you! Some people wet their hands and then rub them with salt. I think this transfers rather too much salt to the rice, but you may prefer the flavour.

4. Having dipped your hands, scoop out a small quantity of warm rice. Depending on the size of your hands, this may be a palmful or half that - remember that, like making a snowball, you'll be compressing the rice together, so the finished onigiri will be a little smaller than the scoop you start out with, and size it accordingly. Always take an amount that you can easily work in your hand. If you have tiny hands, just accept that you will make tiny onigiri. They're cuter, anyway. Also, make sure the onigiri are the right size to fit in the bento box without being squashed when you put on the lid!

5. For disc-shaped onigiri, you need to squeeze and shape the rice with both hands at once, which is why some people find it a little tricky. Make the shape of a C with your left hand, and keep turning the wad of rice against this to give it a round edge. With the thumb and fingers of the right hand, press the rice into a flat shape - so your left hand makes it round, and your right hand makes it flat, turning it all the while, and both contribute to squeezing it together.

It sounds complicated, but once you have some practice you can stop thinking of it step-by-step like this and it becomes simpler and more intuitive. Squeezing too hard will smush the onigiri up; too light a touch will mean it doesn't stick together properly. You will be able to feel and see when you are applying enough pressure. For triangular onigiri, straighten the fingers of your left hand and angle the thumb so that you can give the rice slightly rounded corners as you turn it (you could also make a square - some people do by accident!). You can also modify the disc technique to make capsule or cylinder-shaped onigiri, but I've never had much success with this. Fancier shapes will usually require a mould, which couldn't be simpler - scoop rice into the mould, put on the lid, press it down, then turn the onigiri out of the mould. When the shape is complete, you can add a pre-cut strip of nori seaweed if you wish, folding it around one edge of the disc or triangle, or wrapping around the middle of the capsule.

6. Set the completed onigiri aside on a plate and dip your hands ready for the next one. Chilling the onigiri in the fridge helps to set them. When they are cool, arrange them in the bento box. Quantity will depend on individual appetite, but I find three small onigiri or two medium-sized ones a good amount for lunch.