My mum used to make this for me on Saturdays when I was in elementary school (I had to go to school for half the day on Saturdays!). The aroma of fried soy sauce always reminds me of this fried rice. Kelp is rich in umami, which gives a depth of flavour even though few ingredients are used. If you like it spicy, add hot pepper or seven-spice seasoning (shichimi togarashi) after frying the rice.
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp Vegetable oil
- 17 oz (480 g) Cooked Japanese short grain rice cooled
- 1½ oz (40 g) Seasoned kelp (shio kombu)
- Ground white pepper to taste
- 3 tbsp Japanese soy sauce (shoyu)
- 2 tsp Pickled ginger thinly sliced
- Trefoil (mitsuba) to garnish, blanched
Egg Crepe
- 4 Milk
- 4 tsp Potato starch
How to Make It
- Start by preparing egg crêpe. Combine eggs, milk and potato starch mixture in a small bowl and mix well.
- Heat some oil in a frying pan and pour in egg mixture into the pan to form a thin crêpe about 15-cm (6-in) in diameter. Repeat with the remaining egg mixture to make 3 more crêpes. Cut crêpes into 8 rectangular strips measuring about 15 x 2.5-cm (6 x 1-in).
- In a clean pan, heat some oil and add rice, kelp and pepper. Mix well.
- Remove from heat and pour in soy sauce from the edge of the pan and mix well into the fried rice. Transfer to a plate.
- To make onigiri, place cling wrap in a rice bowl and place some pickled ginger and 60 g (2 oz) of the rice on top. Pull out rice together with cling wrap and gently mould rice into a barrel shape. Remove cling wrap and wrap rice ball with crêpe. Tie a piece of blanched trefoil around the rice ball to garnish. Repeat with the remaining ingredients.