[HN Gopher] Japan's humble onigiri took over lunchtimes around t...
___________________________________________________________________
Japan's humble onigiri took over lunchtimes around the world
Author : n1b0m
Score : 105 points
Date : 2024-09-27 13:12 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| Sakos wrote:
| Love these things. I still remember the first time I saw some at
| a stand at a festival here in Germany. Me and my friend each
| bought one, then bought a few more because they were so freaking
| good. Still have pictures of our first bite. It was shortly after
| that I started seeing them everywhere in supermarkets, and I've
| been buying them regularly ever since (despite the crazy price).
| n1b0m wrote:
| I fell in love with them when I visited Tokyo and I was
| pleasantly surprised to find them in a lot of grocery stores in
| Paris recently. Unfortunately, we don't seem to get them in the
| UK at least not in the big supermarkets.
| cedws wrote:
| I haven't seen any in supermarkets, but bought two in a shop
| in central London recently and it cost PS9, which is eye
| watering compared to Japan 7-Eleven prices.
| Sakos wrote:
| Damn, and I thought 3EUR a piece was a lot.
| cedws wrote:
| That was with a discount too!
| n1b0m wrote:
| I had feeling they were easier to find in London.
| cedws wrote:
| I happen to work near a place that does them, but I
| couldn't find many places that specialise in selling
| takeaway onigiri.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| Fond memories of grabbing a few of these in the little shop
| within Shimokitazawa station, people watching with my wife as we
| wolfed them down, then heading off to the train with satisfied
| stomaches to explore Tokyo.
|
| Are they hard to make at home? I haven't found great/reliable
| spots to get these in SF. (Where are the great SF spots for
| these??)
| darknavi wrote:
| If you have an H Mart near by the sell them in the hot food
| area.
| fotta wrote:
| There's an Onigilly in FiDi but my favorite is the Japanese
| market in Nob Hill on Polk.
| tralarpa wrote:
| > Are they hard to make at home?
|
| Not at all. You need the right type of rice (and a rice cooker
| helps). There are many options for the filling, some of which
| don't even require a trip to the Asian grocery store.
| supportengineer wrote:
| A rice cooker is one of those inexpensive but life-changing
| items.
| Larrikin wrote:
| They are basically sandwich equivalents. You need the correct
| rice but they are easy to make. Parents make them daily for
| their kid's lunches because they are so easy to make.
|
| But also like sandwiches an excellent one is difficult to make.
| et-al wrote:
| > _Are they hard to make at home? I haven 't found
| great/reliable spots to get these in SF. (Where are the great
| SF spots for these??)_
|
| A number of Japanese students I knew just used leftover rice to
| make onigiri for lunch the next day.
|
| In SF, Super Mira on Sutter & Buchanan has an assortment. And
| of course Nijiya. I don't think Onigilly is anything special.
| gretch wrote:
| I think they are super easy to make.
|
| My tip is to go to a japanese grocery store and buy an onigiri
| mold for $3. All you do is stuff the rice (and fillings) into
| the mold and press. Keep the mold in a bowl of water between
| making balls (like they keep ice cream scoops in water)
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| You can also buy specific Japanese rice varieties that are
| better textured when cold. You can also figure out how to
| store them without the nori touching the rice
| Arelius wrote:
| There are some good spots in Japantown I like Kissako tea in
| the japan town mall...
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > Are they hard to make at home?
|
| A bit. I've tried it but didn't have a ton of success. Main
| thing I found is use plastic wrap when trying to shape the
| rice, or else it tends to stick to your hands more than it
| sticks to itself.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Did you use a bowl of lightly salted water to wet your hands
| while handling the rice balls? It's a trick that works for
| dough and masa too without the salt, but the added salt helps
| season the onigiri while you handle it.
| teachrdan wrote:
| You have to keep your hands at least moist to keep the rice
| from sticking. I make a small bowl of warm salty water handy
| when making onigiri to season while I shape.
| RodgerTheGreat wrote:
| Another option that I find works well when I'm preparing a
| large batch is to use nylon gloves. They don't adhere to rice
| nearly as much as latex gloves.
| metalcring wrote:
| I was running into the same issue. I recently bought some
| cheap molds off of amazon and it makes shaping them a breeze.
|
| Fill bottom half with rice > Add Filling > Top off with rice
| > Press and done!
| supportengineer wrote:
| Try the Japanese markets first. Nijiya, Mitsuwa, Marukai
|
| Pro tip:
|
| Get a real rice cooker (Panasonic) and real rice (Nishiki) and
| use the right rice-water ratio of 1:1.25
|
| Be sure to rinse the rice to wash off any arsenic dust. (Same
| is true for other rices and grains)
| 93po wrote:
| i used to never wash my rice bc i was like, i dont see the
| point. it makes it significantly less mushy, will never not
| wash again
| nothercastle wrote:
| Wash also favor with seaweed during cooking
| nothercastle wrote:
| It's 1:1 +20g or whatever for typical evaporation in your
| cooker. If you make more rice you shouldn't scale the 20g
| portion.
| 4hg4ufxhy wrote:
| For me an onigiri with soggy and chewy seaweed is disgusting, but
| one of those where the seaweed stays dry and crispy until
| unwrapping is really tasty.
|
| My favourite is wasabi tuna in a tube shape.
| fotta wrote:
| The wrappers where the seaweed is kept separate from the rice
| until you unwrap it are such a good innovation.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| I almost forgot about these! The common triangular shape
| didn't make it easy to make it work, but they managed anyway.
| Pretty cool.
|
| I know onigiri from a Japan trip but usually don't buy them
| in Germany because they are expensive here. Supermarket sushi
| (sounds strange, but there is actually good supermarket sushi
| made in a little store-in-store) doesn't cost much more.
| dotdi wrote:
| I love onigiri, but over here in Europe they are still pretty
| niche, and by niche I mean expensive.
|
| It's basically a sandwhich, right? Only that it costs 5-10x more.
| layer8 wrote:
| They cost 1.99-2.69 EUR where I live (depending on the
| supermarket chain). A pair of soggy toast sandwiches is about
| the same price.
|
| It's not the cheapest snack in terms of calories per Euro (they
| are around 130 kcal), but still reasonable.
| presentation wrote:
| Just steam some sushi rice, choose a filling, maybe salt the
| rice a bit if you want and form it into the shape with your
| hands. If you want wrap it with some nori, salt or put furikake
| on it. No need to pay the foreign Japanese food tax! It's dead
| simple to make, and whoever is selling that ripoff onigiri to
| you is probably not even Japanese anyway.
|
| (Admittedly the rice here does taste better in my opinion, but
| so it goes...)
| bambax wrote:
| In France you can find them in supermarkets for EUR 3.50
| apiece.
|
| They're also super easy to make yourself, just some rice, any
| kind of filling, and half a sheet of nori to wrap it.
| RajT88 wrote:
| My wife is opening a drive-thru restaurant which serves these
| (among other Asian foods like musubi and lumpia and such).
| Pricing as of now looks like $3 a pop, which is comparable to the
| pricing at the local Mitsuwa. Convenience store onigiri in Japan
| are of course generally a lot cheaper (especially with the
| current exchange rate).
|
| https://www.tsunagujapan.com/16-top-selling-items-at-lawson-...
| electriclove wrote:
| Where at?
| RajT88 wrote:
| Bolingbrook, IL. As of now - opening date seems like late
| Nov., but of course we're new to the resto business and
| there's a learning curve on all of the non-food bits of it.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| Do you think the $3 price is sustainable or optimistic? My
| dream would be to make enough dough to start a restaurant
| affordable and friendly enough to become a community hub.
| Best of luck on your venture!
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| I feel like $5 is not too expensive
| RajT88 wrote:
| The wife has crunched the numbers, and seems to think it
| is sustainable. There's only one way to find out for
| sure, of course.
| disqard wrote:
| Props to you both for doing this -- I wish you steady
| sustainable growth and long-term success!
| m3kw9 wrote:
| had the best home made onigari in japan ever. they don't mess
| around over there
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| I know that there's been rumblings of 7/11 in the USA spinning up
| more food options with an eye to how things are done by its
| parent in Japan, but it really can't come soon enough. Get a move
| on! 7/11 in Japan with its onigiri is amazing and I'm desperate
| for these style of convenience stores with their options to make
| their way over here to USA and Canada.
| teractiveodular wrote:
| 7/11 in Australia, which is generally terrible but was acquired
| by the Japanese operator of 7/11 last year, recently rolled out
| onigiris nationwide after a successful trial in Victoria. So
| there's hope yet!
| scelerat wrote:
| How are they?
|
| I'm in California -- I love the konbinis in Japan, and while
| 7-Eleven's recent announcements to offer more konbini-like
| food and experience sounds great, I fear it's going to fall
| far short of the mark because I think it's a combination of
| ingredients, supply chain, and employee processes and
| practices. Like, all those things need to be on point to
| deliver a quality onigiri or egg salad sandwich, and I don't
| have a whole lot of confidence in the US-based 7-Elevens to
| deliver without massive changes.
|
| (And to be clear, I don't think there has been any mention of
| onigiri appearing at US-based 7-Eleven, they have have
| announced better/different prepared sandwich offerings)
| pknomad wrote:
| > I fear it's going to fall far short of the mark because I
| think it's a combination of ingredients, supply chain, and
| employee processes and practices
|
| Same here as well.
|
| Part of the charm of konbinis (and Japan to an extent) is
| the friendly atmosphere. Foods are fresh (delivered daily
| and inventory churn is consumer friendly) and people
| working at these places (despite being not high-paying)
| have higher level of care of how customers are treated.
| 7-11 here by comparison are... definitely not that.
| rootsudo wrote:
| Would you pay $6.99 for a onigiri?
|
| Sure they're ~120 JPY-240JPY. But it wouldn't be the same
| price. Plus would they really sell them in the USA?
|
| Same for more of the other options, I don't see it really
| happening. There's a reason hotdogs, nachos and whatever else
| they offer in USA is the norm. That's what the market takes and
| settles on and even then, it's over $5.
| lbotos wrote:
| Uh, I buy Onigiri in NYC at Dainobu and I'm pretty sure it's
| $2.99 MAX $4.99.
|
| I think in many metros they could have a market esp if they
| did some sort of anime tie in.
| 93po wrote:
| good god that's expensive for a ball of rice and a spoonful
| of protein. when i went to japan a few years ago they were
| like $1.50 each. I would eat like 6 a day at that price
| (and sometimes did when there)
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| Honestly even at this high price point I'd still be saving
| money from current lunch options.
|
| That's how bad food inflation has been. It's challenging at
| this point to get a lunch cheaper than C$15.
| j7ake wrote:
| A typical American won't be satisfied on the calories of
| one onigiri for lunch.
| pknomad wrote:
| I hope so!
| durumu wrote:
| That seems way too high. I live in Manhattan and I pay
| $2.50-$2.75 for onigiri depending on the filling.
| thenewwazoo wrote:
| Having never had one, are onigiri filled with anything? I think
| of eating something that's basically entirely rice and wonder
| where's the protein? It seems to just be all simple carbs, which
| feels like a setup for an insulin spike and sugar crash.
| dagmx wrote:
| Yes they're usually filled with some kind of filling. Often a
| fish or meat filling.
|
| They're essentially like a dumpling.
| thenewwazoo wrote:
| Oh so more than just what's on top? Neato.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| When I make them at home I usually stuff them with teriyaki
| chicken
| 93po wrote:
| even just the seaweed wrapper adds a lot of flavor, but for
| sure the filling is the best part. it's really tastey rice
| too, not like the rice you'd get dumping any old white rice
| into a rice cooker then trying to eat it
| scelerat wrote:
| tuna plus mayo and umeboshi (tart, pickled plum) are my two
| favorite onigiri stuffings
| Jcampuzano2 wrote:
| When I was in Japan for a while you could get them filled with
| all sorts of things. The most common I recall were tuna and
| mayo or chicken with teriyaki sauce or soy sauce and they're
| delicious. I'd have one or two a day.
| j7ake wrote:
| It's most like carb. Most Japanese diet is much more carb heavy
| than a typical Californian diet.
| n1b0m wrote:
| The pickled plum ones I had in Tokyo were delicious
| daotoad wrote:
| https://www.justonecookbook.com/onigiri-rice-balls/
|
| You can make them all sorts of ways. Plain rice around a
| filling or with rice with stuff mixed in shaped into a ball.
|
| You can also make a more sandwich like variant called
| onigirazu. This link is for one made with chicken katsu, but
| you can use any kind of sandwich filling--strongly flavored,
| savory things like ham work best.
|
| https://www.justonecookbook.com/chicken-katsu-onigirazu/
| supportengineer wrote:
| Our family loves onigiri. It's one of those foods you can
| customize to whatever you feel like that day.
|
| We love this Nori Komi furikake, you can put it on anything,
| including buttery popcorn!
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Jfc-International-Seasoning-Furikake-...
| flakiness wrote:
| Once we made these onigiris for a potluck my kid's school hosted
| and they went away very quickly. So we have stopped exploring
| other menus and just have kept making them every potluck since.
| And it goes away quickly every time.
|
| One thing I noticed since is that it can be a great vegan option:
| You can make one from rice salt and dried kelp/seaweed plus some
| pickles (umeboshi etc.)
| onemoresoop wrote:
| Do you recommend making these over buying them?
| 123pie123 wrote:
| I really prefer making them, the rice will be more moist -
| the rice seems dry when i've bought them
|
| I use a 1/2 seaweed sheet per ball - again better - crispier
| if stored well
|
| our favourite fillings is either curry paste (that very
| concentrated stuff) or the purple flakes (i think they're
| called shiso)
|
| these are one of our families favourite - they go quickly no
| matter how much we make
| legalamb wrote:
| Yes, very inexpensive to make, but outside of Japan they can
| be priced fairly high as specialty items.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| They're definitely better freshly made, either at home or a
| nicer restaurant that makes them to-order. Make sure you buy
| the correct kind of rice or they won't shape properly.
|
| But the premade ones are a very easy grab-n-go food. It's
| like how a homemade burger will always beat a McDonald's
| burger. But there's times and places where you want a burger
| but aren't able to stop and cook one up yourself.
| maupin wrote:
| These are what I miss most about my years living in Japan. I made
| them for my kids a few weeks ago and they adored them. You can
| buy plastic-lined seaweed sheets to fold the rice into, so
| opening them is almost the same experience as onigiri from a
| Japanese conbini. For a filling, I just mixed together some tuna,
| salt, and mayo.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-09-27 23:01 UTC)