Recently, I was lucky enough to spend my honeymoon in South Korea and Japan – easily the best three weeks of eating and drinking of my life.
Since returning to London, my husband and I have been bursting with inspiration for the dishes we want to recreate, from breakfast udon to seafood donburi bowls and Korean fried chicken. But before taking on those lofty projects, we had our first goal: Could we make anything as good as Japanese convenience store food?
I’m not exactly the first traveller to have been blown away by the options available at any given convenience store in Japan, from the world’s greatest peach gummies to the strawberry sandos. But it was the onigiri that we ate more often than anything else.
Onigiri – also known as omusubi – are rice balls, a Japanese comfort-food staple; they come in all kinds of varieties and shapes. The ones we bought were typically triangular and wrapped in nori, and featured fillings from kombu seaweed and salmon roe to eel. They’re a brilliant snack, we quickly discovered – simple, delicious, portable, filling – and thankfully are much easier to make than sushi (we took that cooking class and, alas, we did not excel).
For our onigiri flavours, we chose salmon – not the classic salted salmon, but a soy-marinated version – with the optional addition of soy-cured egg yolks. Both the eggs and salmon are simple to prepare; with freshly cooked sushi rice and an onigiri mould at the ready (Japan Centre sells an affordable option), you’ll have your own stack of onigiri ready to munch on in no time.
Plenty of beers will work with onigiri, but I gravitated towards a wit. Witbiers don’t just go well with seafood; thanks to classic beers like Hitachino Nest White Ale, they also feel like a staple of Japan’s beery landscape. I went with Queer Brewing’s new collab Deadhead, technically a hybrid of the brewery’s classic Flowers witbier and a pale ale. While hoppier than a typical witbier, it remains a delicious and incredibly enticing pairing option here.
Salmon and Cured Egg Yolk Onigiri
Makes roughly 8 onigiri
For the soy-cured egg yolks:
3 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 ½ tablespoons sake
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon ginger paste
4 eggs
For the salmon:
300g salmon
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon cooking sake
1 teaspoon honey
½ teaspoon ginger paste
Sesame oil
Fine sea salt, to taste
To assemble:
500g sushi rice
Fine sea salt, to taste
Furikake (optional)
Thin nori strips (optional)
1. At least the night before you plan to make your onigiri (and up to two nights before), prepare your soy-cured egg yolks. In a ramekin or small bowl, add the soy sauce, sake, honey and ginger, and mix well to combine. Carefully crack the eggs over a separate bowl, reserving the whites for another purpose, and gently place the yolks in the soy sauce mixture, ensuring they don’t break. Cover and transfer to the fridge.
2. The next day, prepare the salmon. Run your fingers lightly over the salmon and remove any stray pin bones you find with a pair of tweezers. In a medium bowl, add the soy sauce, sake, honey, and ginger paste, and mix to combine. Place the salmon, flesh-side down, in the marinade and leave to marinate for 30 minutes.
3. Preheat your oven to 180°C and line a medium baking tray with foil. Drizzle a tiny bit of sesame oil over the foil. Remove the salmon from the marinade and place skin-side-down on the tray; drizzle over more sesame oil. Transfer to the oven and roast for approximately 15–20 minutes, depending on the thickness of your cut, or until it is well done and flakes easily.
4. While the salmon roasts, prepare the sushi rice according to package instructions (I made mine in a rice cooker).
5. Once the salmon has cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool for 5 minutes. Transfer to a cutting board or large bowl, and remove and discard the skin. Using a fork or your hands, flake the flesh. Season with any additional salt to taste, if preferred.
6. When the sushi rice is ready, cover the bowl or pan with a clean kitchen towel, so it doesn’t dry out. Meanwhile, set up your onigiri station. Line a large baking tray with baking paper and fill a shallow bowl with 4 tablespoons (or more) of furikake, if using. Fill a small bowl with cold water and have salt on hand. Rinse your onigiri moulds, leaving them damp (which helps prevent sticking).
7. To make the onigiri, add a light sprinkle of salt to the bottom of the mould. With a spatula or plastic scoop, fill the mould halfway full of rice, using your fingers or a smaller spoon to gently spread the rice so it fills the corners. In the center of the rice, add a tablespoon or two of filling: either flaked salmon on its own or an egg yolk, carefully scooped out of its soy marinade, with some additional salmon flakes.
8. Gently scoop more rice on top until the mould is filled – the rice should be slightly mounded and once again spread to fill the corners; season very lightly with salt. Then, using the lid of your mould, press down gently but firmly, until you feel some resistance. Remove the lid, upend the mould over the baking tray and use the tab at its base to gently press it onto the tray. If you wish, you can roll the onigiri in the furikake to coat.
9. Repeat with the remaining rice and fillings until you’ve made all of your onigiri. (Note that onigiri is generally best served fresh, though you can wrap it in cling film and store in a Tupperware or Ziploc bag overnight to eat the next day, although the rice may harden somewhat.)
10. Right before serving, if you wish, wrap the base of the onigiri in a thin strip of nori seaweed – this offers textural contrast and lets you hold it without your hands getting sticky. Enjoy.
Claire M Bullen is a professional food and travel writer, a beer hound and all-around lover of tasty things. You can follow her at @clairembullen. For more recipes like this, sign up to our HB&B All Killer No Filler beer subscription - you'll receive Claire's recipe and food pairings, plus expert tasting notes, with 10 world-class beers like this one every month.
