You can make a delicious grilled (yaki) onigiri simply by spreading soy sauce or miso paste over the rice ball and putting it under the grill. The smell of grilled rice is so appealing! There is a whole array of miso pastes available at the supermarket red or white; with or without grain, rice or wheat. The differences depend on where they are made and what they are made from. People in the Kanto area, including Tokyo, use aka miso (red miso) while people in the Kansai region, including Osaka and Kyoto, use shiro miso (sweet white miso). Folks in the Tokai area, including Sendai, prefer to use hatchomiso (dark brown miso). If you are not familiar with cooking with miso, you can start by using awase miso, which is made of 50% white and 50% red miso.
Ingredients
- 8½ oz (240 g) Cooked Japanese short grain rice
- 1 tbsp Japanese soy sauce (shoyu) + more for brushing
- 8½ oz Cooked Japanese short grain rice
- 2 tbsp Chopped Japanese leek (naga negi)
- 2 tbsp Miso paste
-
To make grilled soy sauce onigiri
- Combine rice and soy sauce in a large bowl and mix well.
- Scoop 60 g (2 oz) of the rice mixture into a rice bowl. Wet your hands and transfer rice to your hands. Shape rice into a ball or triangle. Repeat with the remaining rice to make 4 onigiri. Leave onigiri on a plate to cool.
- Place onigiri on a sheet of aluminium foil and grill in a toaster oven or frying pan until brown on both sides.
- Brush soy sauce on both sides and grill for another 10 seconds on each side. For grilled miso onigiri
- Combine rice, leek and miso paste in a small bowl and mix well.
- Scoop 60 g (2 oz) of the rice mixture into a rice bowl. Wet your hands and transfer rice to your hands. Shape rice into a ball or triangle. Repeat with the remaining rice to make 4 onigiri. Leave onigiri on a plate to cool.
- Grill onigiri in an oven toaster or frying pan until brown on both sides.
- Spread miso paste on 1 side of onigiri and grill the onigiri with miso paste side down for another 10 seconds. Serve hot.
