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Onigiri (+ Pickled Shiitake)

A very loose guide on how to make onigiri. Please adjust to your taste and add your own preferred fillings.

Ingredients

Rice Mixture

  • 350~400 g cooked short grain rice around 2 cups, more or less depending on how much rice you can eat
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp sesame seeds
  • 2~3 umeboshi (pickled plums) pitted and chopped
  • 1~2 stalks green onion finely chopped
  • 1/2 tsp sesame oil

Pickled Shiitake Filling

  • 8~10 fresh shiitake mushrooms destemmed and sliced
  • 3 tbsp seasoned rice vinegar
  • 1 tbsp Laoganma chili crisp or preferred chili oil
  • 2 tsp gochugaru
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • Dash of white pepper
  • 1 tbsp neutral oil

Instructions

Please feel free to use any filling/combination of seasonings you want

    Shiitake Filling

    • Heat oil in a pan on medium high. Add the shiitake mushrooms and let cook for 2~3min. Mix to cook the other sides and cook another 2min.
    • Add all the other ingredients and mix evenly. Taste and adjust accordingly. Set aside and let cool.

    Shaping Onigiri

    • Place cooked rice in a mixing bowl (if you're taking it out of the fridge you should heat it up) along with all the other ingredients for the rice mixture.
    • Mix the ingredients in bowl thoroughly using a rice spatula. Portion the rice out into four equal parts, or however many onigiri you want to make depending on the size.
    • Wet your hands to make sure the rice doesn't stick to your hands. Scoop the rice into one open hand, you can leave a bit of the portion to add at the end on top of the filling to make it easier, if you aren't using a filling just put all of it in your hand.
    • Curve your hand inward a little bit and make a small dent in the middle. Add a tsp or so of filling into the middle. If you reserved a bit of the rice add it on top to close it.
    • Continue to curve your hand inward to mold the rice so that it covers the filling with the help of your other hand, and then shape the onigiri into a triangle by cupping one hand over the other and pressing firmly.
    • Continue to rotate and shape the onigiri until it's an even triangular shape.
    • Continue the steps above until you've finished molding all the onigiri. And you're done! Enjoy :)

    Notes

    Note that if you don't want to use your bare hands you can also place the rice in cling film (you can reuse the same one for every onigiri), wrap it and shape it.