onigirazu

If you follow us on Instagram, you'll know that I've been hooked on onigirazu lately.

It is a nice way to use up leftovers...like leftover namul for bi bim bap.

Bulgogi.

Roast chicken and corn rice.

Sometimes I make two different types like Buchi-uma chicken and croquette. Then Satoshi and I have one half of each for breakfast.

It is also a nice way to eat up leftover rice with okazu (prepared foods) from the market, like sesame chicken.

Fried fish.

Have you tried onigirazu? What types of fillings have you put in?

le weekend

Recently, a huge Tsutaya opened up at the new Lucua 1100.

Tsutaya is mostly known for its video rental shops but has recently emerged with bookstore/cafes.

This particular Tsutaya is a bookstore/cafe. The interior is rather dark but there are tons of seats for you to grab a coffee and browse their books.

I particularly like that they open at 7:00, perfect for when I go to Umeda when Satoshi has his German class. We usually get there before 9:30 and the amount of places serving breakfast at this time is quite limited.

In Tsutaya there is a Starbucks and a cafe called Le Garage.

I tried Le Garage's blueberry bread pudding and an iced coffee...650 yen (tax included).

The bread pudding was dense and not too sweet and there were lots of blueberries in it.

The iced coffee was good.

I hope to hang out here more often.

Krazy salaryman (businessman) left his bag at the table next to mine and went MIA for over 30 minutes...he should've paid me to watch his bag!

People in Japan way too trusting...

Sunday we went to check out the roses at Aramaki Rose Park. We've been coming here since 2006.

We love getting to the park right when it opens so we can eat our breakfast in peace and quiet.

This place is getting quite popular, there were tons of people when we arrived on Sunday!

Our breakfast was spam egg onigirazu, cherries, pickles, cherry tomato & island lava cookies. I also made hot coffee for Satoshi and a coldbrew for me.

Am loving the fish eye lens.

How was your weekend?

o-nigirazu

I have been seeing this all over Japan's social media and blogosphere and had to try it...it's called O-nigirazu.

If you remember, O-nigiri is what a lot of people in Kansai call rice balls...I've written a detailed post about that here.

Anyway with O-nigirazu, you don't mold the rice with your hands...which is why they call this O-nigirazu. In Japanese, using "zu" at the end of verbs makes the verb negative...I hope I'm explaining this correctly.

Take a sheet of nori...

Place some rice (about the size of the shamoji (rice paddle) in the center and spread the rice out thin but do not go all the way to the edge of the nori, keep everything as close to the center of the nori.

I also added a piece of fried chicken and some baby leaf lettuce. Add the fillings that you like.

Add a little more rice to top it off and bring up all the corners to the center, like when you make your own envelope.

NOTE: If the filling and rice combo is too much, your corners may not make it to the center.

I also used wax paper to hold everything together.

Then I flipped over the O-nigirazu and sliced it in half. Try not to "saw" at it, as it may fall apart.

When cut in half, it should kinda look like this.

These are perfect for picnics, parties or to put into your bento boxes.

NOTE: if you are bringing this on a picnic, you may want to wrap each half in plastic wrap. Also, if your filling has some sauce or gravy it may make things a bit soggy, so try to pick something that doesn't have too much liquid.

The different fillings are endless and you can even add furikake or tsukemono (pickles) to your rice, I hope you find a combo that you like.

I had fun making this and will make this again. Have a nice weekend!