Batman Onigiri

This is just a quick recipe that happened when I was making lunch for the brat.

Onigiri is a handheld snack consisting of rice with some fillings wrapped with seaweed. It is similar to sushi in a way but the seasonings and filling may be different.

I was going to make traditional sushi rolls cut into bite size pieces but since I had prepared all the ingredients, I would experiment with using it all in a different shape.

A lesson to you all. Play with your food. It's ok to do that.

Step 1: It's So Fluffy...

You need to start out with a batch of rice.

The preferred rice is a medium grain rice which cooks up to be very sticky.

Follow the directions on the package to make rice in either a traditional pot or electric rice maker.

Once cooked, transfer it all to a big bowl to cool down.

Add about a tablespoon of sugar dissolved in two tablespoons of rice vinegar to season the rice. Add a bit of salt for flavor too.

Use a wooden spoon or rice paddle to mix it all in and to turn the rice so it cools quicker.

Step 2: Fried Gizzards...not

Well, if you like gizzards, go for it.

This was just chicken thigh meat cut up into strips.

We want to fry it up tempura style which is dipped in batter.

You can also bread it with crunchy panko bread crumbs or just dust it with flour or cornstarch.

I made the tempura batter with some all-in-one pancake batter mix and cornstarch added in 50/50. . I didn't have a fresh batch of baking powder to add in to help the batter fry up light and airy so that is why I grabbed the pancake mix.

Throw in an egg and some water to mix into your tempura batter.

Coat all your chicken pieces by dipping in the batter and then into the fryer.

Fry in a vat of cooking oil at 350 degrees F until golden brown and cooked through.

Step 3: What Is Behind That Mask...

I had some cucumber strips that would go into sushi already prepared.

Have a bowl of water so you can wet your fingers to prevent the rice from sticking to your hands.

On a piece of plastic wrap, I placed a ball of sushi rice and put a piece of fried chicken and some cucumber pieces in the middle.

Gather that all up into a ball and then flatten out.

You can then press in and form the traditional triangular shape.

Roasted seaweed for sushi, called nori, is dry and brittle.

I didn't have a razor sharp kitchen knife that could easily cut the intricate shapes so I resorted to using a clean pair of scissors.

Cut out a piece of nori that wraps around the bottom of the triangle block of rice.

Use scissors to cut out the Batman mask, eyes and mouth.

Wrap the rice.

Cut another piece to wrap around the bottom portion to form a cape.

There are many examples out there on making onigiri in other fun shapes.

For the season, do jack-o-lantern faces, animals or other super hero faces.

Enjoy!