No More Japanese Food, I Swear

Whew! That trip to 1st Oriental supermarket sure spawned a lot a Japanese food-related posts. I promise to cook something different next time!

But I had some short grain rice and leftovers from Nabeyaki Udon, so I made rice balls this time. Rice balls are great because they're super quick and easy, you can put basically whatever you have on hand in them, and they look pretty fancy when you're done. 

Now, they're easier and quicker if you have a rice cooker. I, of course, do not have a rice cooker, so as usual I just take my patented "wing it" approach.

Generally, I use 1 cup of rice and 1 + a tiny bit extra cup of water. I rinse the rice til the water runs clear, soak the rice in the cooking water for about half an hour, and then cook it in a nonstick pan.

You need a lid to cook short grain rice. I, predictably, do not have a lid to fit my nonstick pan, so I just balanced another pan on top of my pan. This was probably not the best idea or the most elegant solution, but I managed not to break anything, spill anything, or light anything on fire. I count that as a win.

Jesus, take the wheel!

I bring the water to a boil, reduce the heat to low, and simmer the rice for about 5 minutes. When the time's up, I turn up the heat to high for a couple seconds to burn off any extra water and then leave it to sit for 10 minutes. These 10 minutes are torturous because knowing that I need to leave the lid on makes the temptation to take it off and check on the rice nigh on impossible to resist.

In the meantime, I get my fillings and nori (the seaweed wrapping that comes on sushi) together. My cat was gracious enough to leave me just enough katsuobushi for rice balls, so I soaked that in soy sauce for one of the fillings. For the other filling, I fished some of the mushrooms out of my leftover soup and chopped them up with Welsh onion.

Once the rice is cool enough to work with, you just have to put everything together.

In progress

 I wet my hands with salt water to keep the rice from sticking to my hands too much and also flavor it slightly. Then I take a small handful of rice and flatten it in my left hand. I add the fillings to the middle and then place some more rice over top of the filling before I pack it together with my right hand and shape the rice balls into little triangles. Then I just add a strip of nori, which tastes good and helps with eating the rice balls without getting your hands all sticky, and they're done.  Sometimes, just for presentation's sake, I add a small dollop of the filling on top.

Fancy

And since we're still on the topic of Asian foods, I just want to share this cute little guy real quick:

Awwwww

My mom and brother went to some kind of cooking class and made these adorable little bunny shaped dumpling thingies. The wrapping is, I am told, made of corn starch and water and they're filled with some kind of sweet, green tea paste. They were pretty delicious. Good job, family.