Onigirazu is a variation on Japanese Onigiri (rice balls), that is more of a rice/seaweed sandwich with different fillings. These are less traditional and can be filled with lot of different things. I made a version with spam, fried egg and lettuce and these were delicious.
You need a few things to make these. It is helpful to have a onigirazu or musubi mold for these because it allows you to shape and compress the rice and fillings, but you can also just shape the rice using a spatula or bench scraper or other flat kitchen implement if you don’t want to get a mold.
You also need some sheets of sushi seaweed and some furikake rice sprinkles which come in many flavors. You can make these without the sprinkles too, but they are fun and tasty to eat on rice. I used shisho furikake for these.
To make these, you need to cook your rice ahead of time to let it fully cool before shaping. I did mine in the morning and just let it sit until I used it at dinner time.
Spam and Egg Onigirazu
Equipment
- 1 onigirazu mold
Ingredients
- 6 large eggs
- 1 can spam sliced into 6 slices and pan fried
- 6 sheets seaweed (nori)
- 3 cups cooked asian rice
- salt
- furikake
- iceberg lettuce
- 1 tbsp mirin
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp rice vinegar
Instructions
- Cook the rice according to my recipe for cooking Asian rice and cool. Toss the rice with a little salt and the soy sauce, rice vinegar and mirin.
- Pan fry the spam over medium low until it is browned and crispy.
- Fry the eggs over medium until the yolks are fully cooked.
- Place one sheet of seaweed on some plastic wrap as shown in the pictures. Place a thin layer of rice in the mold and press it down. Add a piece of spam, an egg, some lettuce, and top with another thin layer of rice and press into the mold again. Sprinkle the top of the rice with some furikake.
- Remove the mold and fold the two opposite corners of the seaweed across in the thinner direction and use a little water to seal. Fold up the other two sides like wrapping a present and seal with a little water. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap to help the seaweed keep it shape around the ingredients.
- Repeat with the remaining ingredients. These are eaten at room temp. They can be stored in the fridge if you have leftovers but the rice will harden up a bit as it does in the fridge so return to room temp before eating.