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Quote by Julie Abe

“Onigiri, little triangular balls of rice, each with different seasonings, rest on one side of the basket next to packets of dried seaweed. And there’s boxes of the best side dishes ever in the middle: everything from potato salad drizzled with tonkatsu sauce (Jack’s favorite) to gomae spinach, boiled spinach with sesame seeds (my favorite). On the other side, there are tiny bottles of green tea and two boxes labeled Dessert.”

Quote by Julie Abe

Book:The Charmed List
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The Charmed List

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Julie Abe

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“This is spinach ohitashi." "Ha! Here it is! And the red part of the root has been finely chopped and placed upon the leaves and stem...!" "The redness of the root looks so pretty on the green leaves and stem." "Hmm. Roots are crunchy, but they don't have any bad texture to them. It's been boiled to perfection, and the dashi... Hmm, it's got something in it... Dashi made katsuobushi with soy sauce, and there's a very slight secret flavor added to it... the plum..." "Yes. A very slight amount of the umezu I got from making the umeboshi. You sure do have a keen sense of taste, Kyōgoku-san... Grilled young taro. It's a little early for them, but I love the refreshing taste of these small taro. The skin has been grilled, so you can peel it off very easily. They taste good with just salt... ...but they're irresistible with salted sea urchin." "Ooh! The refreshing taste of the small taro and the rich flavor of the sea urchin matches perfectly!”

VegetablesJapanese FoodSpinachFood CombiningTaro
Book:Vegetables
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“This is salmon takikomi gohan. You slice the salted salmon into fillet strips and grill just its skin first to give it a savory scent. Then you cut it into cubes and cook them along with the rice. By placing some Japanese wild parsley on it before eating it, the fishy scent will disappear, making it even more better to eat." "Hmm. I like how they grilled the skin first to give it the savory scent. And cooking the bones with the rice really brings out the flavor." "This takikomi gohan lets you taste every essence of the salmon." "The next one is a classic maze gohan, hijiki rice. A good hijiki is one that's thick and long, with a slight firmness to it. You cook that hijiki along with carrots, shiitake mushrooms, lotus roots and thin fried tofu into a sweet and salty taste and then mix them into the cooked rice." "Ha ha ha. This is definitely a very Japanese flavor!" "It's rustic, but it has a rich, fertile flavor that moves my heart.”

RiceSalmonJapanese FoodAlgaeMixed
Book:The Joy of Rice
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“Seafood is also something we cannot do without as a country surrounded by sea. And the rich variety of seafood is often used in rice balls. The first one is a classic rice ball, with salted salmon. It's slightly different since the grilled salted salmon is broken down into flakes... ... and mixed into the rice together with chopped green onion... ...then made into a rice ball and wrapped in roasted dried seaweed." "Ah, the salmon has been mixed nicely into the rice, so it has a very rich taste." "And the flavor of the green onion gets rid of the fishy scent of the salmon, making the rice ball taste even better." "This will be great to have in a lunch box." "The next rice ball is coated with shredded dried seaweed just like the last one, but the filling is different. It's sea urchin, but it's not raw sea urchin or the typical bottled sea urchin. It's sea urchin shiokara." "Sea urchin shiokara?" "Most of the typical bottled sea urchins have been steeped in alcohol. It's probably because they're easier to make and easier to eat. But in the old days, sea urchin was often made into shiokara. If you salt the sea urchin and let it age and ferment, it becomes far richer tasting compared to a raw sea urchin or the alcohol-macerated sea urchin. Nowadays, that sea urchin shiokara has become very rare, and many people don't even know what it tastes like. So I've decided to use it as a filling for the rice ball." "Ooh, it has such a rich taste." "By being fermented, the sea urchin has developed a completely different flavor along with the original flavor it had.”

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Book:The Joy of Rice
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“The filling for the rice ball is the wasabi leaves and stem marinated overnight in soy sauce. You make that into a rice ball using sushi rice... ... and wrap dried seaweed around it to create a rice ball the size of a ping-pong ball. Meanwhile, you create a barazushi. Ingredients like grilled saltwater eel with sauce, kohada marinated in vinegar, kanpyo, steamed shrimp, steamed abalone and others... ...are all chopped up... ...and mixed into the rice. Then use the small rice ball you made beforehand as the next filling... ... to create a larger rice ball. And then you coat it with thin strips of grilled egg.”

SeafoodJapanese FoodJapanese CookingFillingsMixedRice Balls
Book:The Joy of Rice
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“The last one is a fun rice ball. The filling is ground black sesame and walnuts flavored with sweet honey. We made a rice ball out of that... ... and coated it with kinako soybean powder." "Huh... a sweet rice ball." "I've never seen a rice ball coated in kinako." "Ha ha ha... this is fun." "The black sesame and walnut isn't just sweet--- it also has a wonderful scent. Come to think of it, this really is the taste of Japan." "The taste of good old Japan too." "Sesame, walnut, powdered soybeans and honey. The combination of these sweet flavors... It soothes the heart, doesn't it?" "This really is like a dessert.”

DessertJapanese FoodJapanese CookingRice BallsSweet Food
Book:The Joy of Rice
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