I made Yaki Onigiri (grilled rice balls) for lunch today.
First, the very plain white rice was made with my double-lid donabe rice cooker, "Kamado-san". Hope the camera could capture how shiny and gorgeous looking the rice was. It smelled so nice, too. I just wanted to eat it straight, but I had to fight against this temptation.
With the plain donabe rice, I made the plain onigiri (rice balls). So that the surface area for the sauce will be wider, I made them into relatively thin disks.
The plain onigiri were arranged on the hot Iga-yaki grill, "Yaki Yaki San". This ancient-clay grill is also great for grilling the rice balls. It's smokeless and also quiet. I brushed a little amount of the sesame oil on the grill and slowly grilled the rice balls.
Once they were turned over, I spread the miso-based sauce on the surface of each onigiri. The sauce has the equal parts of miso paste and mirin, with a little sprinkle of each ichimi pepper, sansho pepper, and ground sesame seeds. After a few minutes, I turned them over again and put more miso sauce on the other side of each onigiri. Then I turned them over one more time after a few more minutes.
I made 7 onigiri and ate 4 of them! How could I resist? They smelled so nice, the texture was beautifully crusty outside and still fluffy inside (the grains nicely fell apart in the mouth), and the flavor was beautiful. I could've actually finished them all, but I decided to save a few for Jason.
Happy donabe life.
