Here's my confession. At first I was imagining rice balls with chunks of mentaiko throughout, like clear white colored rice and red chunky mentaiko color contrast. Little did I know that once I removed the mentaiko roe from the membrane, there's no way I can keep these little roes intact.
So I ended up with mini roes scattered throughout the rice grains, thus the romantic pink hue everywhere. Definitely not what I have in mind, but with such pretty tone in the end, not bad actually.
Mentaiko scallion and sesame seeds onigiri -
Ingredients (about 4 servings)?
- 60 grams mentaiko
- 4 portions cooked white rice
- 1 stalk scallion
- 1 large nori sheet
- 1 tablespoon white sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon toasted white sesame seeds
How?
Precook some white rice for this recipe, preferably use bit less water than usual to get slightly drier bouncier grains in the end. You can use the rice while still a bit warm, or even overnight rice that's been stored in the fridge. Just remember to bring up the temperature a little before shaping into onigiri.
Remove the mentaiko from its membrane.
Transfer the mentaiko roes to a bowl. Destem and chop the scallion. We will only use the green section for this recipe. Add that to the bowl too, about 6 tablespoons. Also tear one big nori sheet into smaller pieces and add to the bowl. Lastly, add 1 tablespoon of toasted white sesame seeds and drizzle 1 tablespoon of white sesame oil too.
Fold in about 4 servings of rice and gently mix till evenly blended. Roughly mark four equal portions.
Take each portion and shape into onigiri, let it be round or triangle, whichever shapes are good. You can dip some drinkable water to your palms before working with the rice to prevent sticking. However, the most fool-proof way to do it is laying down a sheet of cling foil, scoop the rice mixture on top, grab the cling foil edges and tighten up, making the mixture into rice balls.
You might want to use a new sheet of cling foil for each rice balls. Also notice that I didn't put any salt to the list of ingredients? Mentaiko can be very salty so just by itself, the flavor should be salty enough.
Have you found out that this time we are not using the nori sheet to "wrap" the rice balls, instead we torn it into little pieces and mixed together with the rice. However, I suppose if you would like to keep the nori sheet on the outside, to wrap the rice ball, that should work too.
Just that the texture can be a little bit different. If using nori sheet as a wrap, usually the nori sheet sould still be crispy if being served right away. On the other hand, nori sheet as part of the mixing ingredient, it'll turn soft with almost unnoticeable texture. But that nori aroma will be evenly permeating the rice grains throughout.
So I guess in the end it's up to you regarding where to use the nori sheet. I do find it fun and a nice change once a while by using the nori sheet as part of the mix-together element though.
Other onigiri recipes:
- Komatsuna katsuobushi onigiri (rice balls with Japanese mustard spinach and bonito flakes)
- Sansho pork onigiri
- Misoyaki onigiri 味噌焼きおにぎり
- Egg scallion and shio kombu onigiri 蔥蛋塩昆布日式飯糰
