Sushi Rice and Onigiri

Cooking Skills: Rice 2

Chapter 1 · Sushi Rice and Onigiri

Skill goal

Cook and season short-grain rice the Japanese way, and shape it into rice balls.

The basics

This course assumes you have worked through Cooking Skills: Rice 1, especially absorption rice (chapter 3), the cooked-rice safety rules (chapter 2) and pilaf (chapter 5). Rice 2 takes those methods around the world, starting in Japan.

Japanese cooking relies on one rice: short-grain Japanese rice, plump, slightly sweet and sticky once cooked. There are three steps to cooking it well, none of which you needed for basmati: rinse thoroughly (until the water is only slightly milky), soak for 20 to 30 minutes so the grains cook through evenly, and rest after cooking. From there the road splits in two.

	Plain Japanese rice	Seasoned sushi rice
Used for	Onigiri, rice bowls, eating with a meal	Sushi rolls, chirashi, inari
Seasoning	Salt on your hands only	Rice vinegar, sugar and salt
Texture	Soft, sticky, plump	Slightly firmer, glossy, tangy
Eaten	Warm or cold	Room temperature

The vinegar in sushi rice isn't a preservative you can rely on. Sushi rice is still cooked rice, and it needs the same care as any other: don't leave it out for hours, and chill what you won't use soon.

Try it

Level 1 · Start here

Plain Japanese rice

50 minutes, mostly waiting2 portionsthe base for onigiri

Short-grain rice is cooked by the absorption method from Cooking Skills: Rice 1, chapter 3, with a longer rinse and a soak. Rinsing matters more here, because you want clean, shiny grains that stick together without turning to paste.

Ingredients (2 portions)

150 g short-grain Japanese rice (sushi rice)
190 ml cold water

Put the rice in a bowl, cover with cold water, swirl with your fingers and tip the cloudy water away. Repeat 3 or 4 times, until the water is only slightly milky.
Cover with fresh water and soak for 20 to 30 minutes. Drain in a sieve and leave for 10 minutes.
Put the rice and the 190 ml of water in a small pan with a tight lid. Bring to the boil, stir once, then cover and cook on the lowest heat for 12 minutes. No peeking.
Take off the heat and leave covered for 10 minutes. Fluff gently with a wet spatula or rice paddle, using cutting strokes rather than stirring.

Why short-grain?

Short-grain rice is rich in the starch that makes grains cling together, so it holds a shape. Long-grain rice (basmati, long-grain) will crumble in a rice ball and fall apart in a roll. Look for bags marked "sushi rice" or "Japanese rice"; medium-grain paella rice is a rough substitute for onigiri, not for sushi.

Level 2 · Sushi rice

Seasoned sushi rice (su-meshi)

10 minutes, once the rice is cooked2 portionsthe base for chapter 2

Sushi rice is plain rice mixed with a sweet-sharp vinegar dressing while it's hot. The heat lets the rice drink in the seasoning, and the fanning gives it a shine.

Ingredients (2 portions)

150 g short-grain rice, cooked as in the plain Japanese rice recipe (about 400 g cooked)
2 tbsp plain rice vinegar
2 tsp caster sugar
½ tsp salt

Warm the vinegar, sugar and salt together (15 seconds in the microwave, or a minute in a small pan) and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Leave to cool.
Tip the hot, just-cooked rice into a wide, shallow bowl or tray (wood or plastic, not metal).
Pour the dressing evenly over the rice. Using a spatula, cut and fold with slicing strokes, as if cutting the rice into slices, turning it over. Don't stir or mash.
Fan the rice with a magazine or piece of card while you fold, for 3 to 5 minutes, until it is glossy and no longer steaming. Cover with a damp tea towel.
Use within 1 hour. If you aren't going to, cool it completely, put it in a covered container in the fridge and treat it as ordinary cooked rice (24 hours); it will go firm, so let it come back to room temperature for 15 to 20 minutes before rolling.

No sushi vinegar?

Plain rice vinegar plus sugar and salt, as here, is the same thing as the bottled "sushi vinegar" or "sushi seasoning". If you buy it ready-made, use about 3 tablespoons for this batch, and taste.

Level 2 · Shaping

Onigiri: three (or four) fillings

30 minutes4 rice ballsJapanese lunchbox classic

An onigiri is a hand-shaped ball or triangle of plain, lightly salted rice with a small filling in the middle. Use plain rice (not the vinegared sushi rice), and make it while the rice is still just warm enough to handle.

Ingredients (4 portions)

1 batch batch of plain Japanese rice (about 400 g cooked), warm or cooled, not vinegared
1 nori sheet, cut into 4 strips
½ tsp fine salt, for your hands
20 g hot-smoked salmon (flaky, ready to eat), flaked
½ tsp reduced-salt soy sauce
¼ ripe avocado, mashed
½ tsp sesame seeds
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp tinned tuna in spring water, drained
1 tsp light mayonnaise or natural yoghurt
1 umeboshi (pickled plum), stoned and finely chopped (optional, very salty)

Mix each filling in its own small bowl: the salmon with the soy; the avocado mashed with the lemon juice and sesame seeds; the tuna with the mayonnaise. Chop the pickled plum if using.
Fill a small bowl with water. Wet both hands, then rub a pinch of salt over your palms.
Scoop about 100 g of rice (a golf-ball-and-a-half) into one palm. Press a hollow in the middle and add about 1 teaspoon of filling.
Fold the rice over the filling and cup it in your hands. Press gently, turning, 3 or 4 times, into a triangle or ball. Use firm, light pressure: too hard makes it dense, too soft and it falls apart.
Wrap a strip of nori round the base, so you can hold it without touching the rice. Wet and re-salt your hands before each one.

Not with raw fish

Rice balls are meant to be carried and eaten later. Never fill an onigiri with raw fish, and don't use raw egg. Cooked, tinned or hot-smoked fish, avocado and pickles are fine.

Level 3 · Take it with you

Onigiri bento box

15 minutes, plus chilling1 portiona safe packed lunch

A healthy lunchbox, and the one place where the rice safety rules really matter. Rice balls that sit in a warm bag for hours are exactly how rice goes wrong.

Ingredients (1 portion)

2 onigiri from the previous recipe
1 medium egg, hard-boiled for 10 minutes
5 cm cucumber, cut into sticks
50 g edamame beans (frozen, boiled for 3 minutes and cooled)
4 cherry tomatoes
1 insulated lunch bag and a frozen ice pack

Cool the onigiri on a plate for no more than 30 minutes, then put them in the fridge (covered, so they don't dry out) within 1 hour of cooking the rice.
Hard-boil the egg for 10 minutes, cool it in cold water and peel. Cool the edamame in cold water and drain.
In the morning, pack the cold onigiri, egg, cucumber, edamame and tomatoes in a box, and put the box in the insulated bag with the frozen ice pack.
Eat the lunch the same day, ideally within 4 hours of packing. Throw away anything that's left.

Experiments

Experiment

Rinse and soak

How much do the washing and the soak matter for short-grain rice?

Cook three small lots of 50 g rice: one unrinsed, one rinsed 4 times, and one rinsed 4 times and soaked for 30 minutes. Use 65 ml of water for each and the same time.
Shape a small ball from each, and taste.

Look for: The unrinsed rice is gummier and clumps into a paste, the rinsed and soaked rice has clearer, more distinct grains and an even texture throughout.

Experiment

How much vinegar

Find the seasoning you like.

Divide 300 g of cooked plain rice into three portions of 100 g.
Fold the vinegar dressing into them in amounts of 1 teaspoon, 2 teaspoons and 1 tablespoon, then fan and taste each at room temperature.

Look for: Two teaspoons per 100 g of rice is the usual balance. Notice how sharp the larger amount is, and how bland the smallest is.

Experiment

Wet hands, salt or neither

Why do recipes insist on wet, salted hands?

Shape one onigiri with dry hands, one with wet hands and no salt, and one with wet, salted hands.
Notice how much rice sticks to your fingers, then taste each.

Look for: Dry hands are covered in rice, wet hands don't stick. The salt seasons the outside, which is where your tongue meets the rice first.

Tasting notes

What I tried	Method or amount	What I saw	What I thought	Will I do it again?
Plain Japanese rice
Seasoned sushi rice
Onigiri (salmon)
Onigiri (avocado)
Onigiri (tuna)
Rinse and soak
Vinegar amount
Wet hands vs dry

Troubleshooting

Problem	Likely cause	What to do
Rice is gluey or mushy	Not rinsed enough, or too much water	Rinse until nearly clear, and measure carefully
Rice is hard in the middle	Not soaked, or the lid was lifted	Soak first and keep the lid on; add 2 tablespoons of hot water and cook 3 minutes more
Rice too sour or too sweet	Dressing out of balance	Taste the dressing before adding; use less next time
Onigiri falls apart	Rice too dry or cold, or pressed too gently	Use rice that is just warm, wet your hands and press firmly
Onigiri rock hard	Squeezed too hard	Use gentle but firm pressure; 3 or 4 presses is enough
Sushi rice is mushy after folding	Stirred, not cut	Use slicing strokes and fold, don't stir

Food safety: rice balls, sushi rice and lunchboxes

Plain and sushi rice are cooked rice, so the rules from Cooking Skills: Rice 1, chapter 2, apply. Cool quickly, refrigerate within 1 hour and use within 24 hours. A lunchbox needs a frozen ice pack and an insulated bag, and any uneaten rice is thrown away at the end of the day. If you have a fridge at work, use it.

Checkpoint: can you do this now?

I can rinse, soak and cook short-grain rice.
I can season sushi rice with vinegar without mashing it.
I can shape a firm onigiri with a filling inside.
I know why rice balls need chilling and an ice pack.
I know why raw fish does not belong in a rice ball.

Next chapter

Cooking Skills: Rice 2, chapter 2 is Sushi at Home: hand rolls, maki rolls, inari pockets and a chirashi bowl, with a box for making any of them with raw fish.