Just Hungry

I have very fond memories of onigiri when I lived in Japan: After blowing six or seven thousand yen ($60 - $70) at the clubs in Roppongi, all you have okane left for in the morning is the train ticket home, a can of hot Morinaga coffee and a couple of 7-11 onigiri. I actually prefer the convenience store onigiri to home-made... sad, huh?

Because onigiri is cheap and perishable, the only place you would ever really know about it or find it routinely is in Asia... Korean and Japanese convenience stores have an ever-changing variety of onigiri flavors (and other yummy snacks). Because of its short shelf life you'll never be able to order it over the internet, until some enterprising Japanese manufacturer decides to start exporting it, or making it here in the US. Even then, it's only really good when fresh (off the shelf).

The best rule of thumb when making onigiri is that it is a snack of convenience: use what you like and what you have on hand. Vegetarian onigiri is -totally- possible! A filling that is neither very oily nor too wet is best, because rice cannot stick if the filling is too greasy. To ensure a crispy nori wrapping, apply it last, since dry seaweed drinks up all available moisture and becomes soggy, while simultaneously making your rice dry. Wrapping your rice balls in plastic is perfectly fine for transporting or overnight storage, and keeps the rice fairly moist (unwrapped rice dries out very quickly in the refrigerator).

Finally, if you would like to try to make a traditional onigiri, you can order umeboshi (pickled plum) or tsubozuke (pickled radish) over the internet. Both make nice, salty fillings for onigiri. To ensure that the onigiri is a convenient snack, you might want to throw an onigiri party, where everyone pitches in to make two or three of their own onigiri using a shared pot of rice, shared nori seaweed and shared fillings/toppings.