The Funky Kitchen

My first onigiri experiences were all at the Neighborhood Bookstore & Cafe, a cute local place that a friend of mine works at. Along with the vegan cake, home made cookies and sandwiches proffered, there were two kinds of onigiri: tuna and umeboshi. Tuna is my favorite of the two.

I still call them sushi triangles, I didn’t know what they were officially called at first and the name has sort of stuck for me. And now that I have gotten a handle on the preparation of sticky rice (though I still don’t have a handle on keeping the rice from getting stuck to my hands) onigiri have been a great addition to lunches and late night snacks alike. They’re stupendously simple to make, and the ingredients required don’t hit too hard on the wallet either. That makes this new homeowner feel pretty good, ha ha.

Tuna Onigiri

1 Cup sticky rice, prepared

1 can of tuna, drained

1 Tbsp of mayonnaise

2 sheets of nori

• Prepare rice and then allow it to cool to a point where it can be comfortably handled.
• With a fork combine the tuna and mayonnaise, also using the fork to break up any big clumps of tuna.
• Sandwich a spoonful of the tuna filling between two vaguely triangular layers of rice. It’s easier to mold into a triangle shape if you start out working with triangles.

• Mold into a triangular shape, or shape of your preference. (Aside: If you are like me, and seem unable to keep the sticky rice from gumming up your fingers, you can use a handy dandy piece of cling wrap. Make the layers, as in the step above, on a piece of cling wrap, fold it over, and then mold your onigiri into the desired shape.)
• If you are using cling wrap, peel it off, and repeat the process.

• Cut each of your nori sheets into three, lengthwise.
• If you are going to eat your sushi triangles right away, wrap each with one of the nori strips, and enjoy. If you are packing your onigiri for lunch, store the nori strips away from the rice so that they don’t get soggy, perhaps in a different compartment of your bento box or a ziploc bag, and wrap the onigiri when you are ready to consume them.

It’s just that easy! What a tasty, easy on the wallet lunch!

Sometimes I read a recipe, and my inner foodie goes, “MMM, I want that. That seems perfect. That is exactly right, let’s make it!”

And other times, I read a recipe and my inner foodie says, “How novel! I like the idea of that, but I could tweak this… maybe add a bit of that… hmm, that seems like a long time to wait, how could I change it? .”

As you can see, my inner foodie can be quite demanding. I’m quite sure that is the boat eveyone is in, though, we all have our food idiosyncrasies: combinations we like, flavors we enjoy, ideas of how and how not to do things.  It’s odd though,  some recipes a person reads, they will want to follow strictly, and some come out to look very little like what the recipe intended them to look like.

Julie Albert and Lisa Gnat’s Slacker’s Stacked Sushi, was definitely one of the latter type for me. As soon as I read the recipe I loved the idea of it, but raced off into different ingredients, different presentation and different preparatory steps. The inspiration lead to an incredulously delightful dinner, but part of me has been left wondering what the results of following the recipe would have been. I’m sure it would have been great, I trust Julie and Lisa’ s judgement, but what we ate, in the end, had little to do with the original other than inspiration.

I took the ingredients of some of my favorite maki sushi, but instead of rolling it up, I layered it out. The smoked salmon and cucumber from Philadelphia rolls, the panko crumbs and asparagus from Bite Me rolls, and shrimp went in because the Mister and I are just a little shrimp crazed. Maybe these ingredients aren’t to your taste, but this recipe can be a jumping off point, an inspirational idea for you, like it was for me. The flexibility of being able to put in what you like (maybe tuna, maybe octopus, maybe eel!) gives this meal a lot of chances to be personalized. I think next time, we’ll set everything out and let guests stack their own, making their own stacked sushi bowls of choice.

Stacked Sushi Bowls

(very loosely based on Slacker’s Stacked Sushi by Julie Albert & Lisa Gnat in Bite Me)

1 Cup sticky rice

1 1/4 Cups water

1 sheet of nori, broken into bits

12-15 small shrimp, peeled, deveined and steamed

3-4 stalks of asparagus, blanched and chopped into bite size pieces

2-3 Tbsp panko bread crumbs

1/3 of a cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced

a few slices of smoked salmon, cut into small pieces

wasabi and soy sauce, to taste

• Place the rice in a colander and rinse with cold water.
• Place in a pot with the water, and place on a burner set to high, stirring occasionally until it comes to a boil.
• Pop a lid onto the pot, turn the burner down to a minimal setting. Allow to simmer and steam for 18 minutes. No peeking! Leave the lid where it is.
• At the end of 18 minutes, check that the rice is done. If it is, scoop it out onto a plate and allow it to cool to room temperature. (Or, if you are impatient like me, spread it out on the plate to increase it’s surface area and pop it in the freezer for 8-10 minutes).
• While waiting for the rice to be ready, you should have time to cut up and prepare the rest of the ingredients.
• Take two bowls (the ones I used I recently came into possession of at a pre-garage sale at a friend’s, thanks Rudi and Lydia!), and scoop a heaping tablespoon or so of rice into each. Spread it out so that it makes a thin layer.

• On top of the rice, add a layer of nori bits, and a layer of shrimp.

• Repeat with another layer of rice. I try to keep the rice layers thin so that you get a higher filling to rice ratio.
• Add a layer of cut up smoked salmon, topped with a layer of gorgeously green asparagus.

• Add a third layer of rice, followed by a layer of cucumbers, the last of the shrimp, and a sprinkling of panko crumbs.
• If you’re feeling fancy, feel free to garnish, if not, gobble up your sushi stack!

We certainly managed to make them disappear quickly.

As a note: when handling sticky rice, if you have a bowl of warm water and vinegar alongside to keep your hands damp and starch free, you can avoid getting a lot of pesky rice stuck to you. I wish I had looked that up before I made these bowls…