The Three Riceketeers ^_^

Hello! Unfortunately, I won’t be able to post as consistently for the next week or so because I’ll be on vacation, but I figured I’d do one more before I head to Disney World~! Today’s recipe is Three Kinds of Onigiri! Onigiri are Japanese rice balls in the shape of triangles, and they normally have different fillings on the inside. So as you can guess, I’ll be giving you three different recipes for fillings. Have fun!

PORK, GARLIC, AND HONEY

Ingredients

·      7 oz pork belly

·      2 tsp crushed garlic

·      2 oz miso

·      2 tbsp honey

·      1 tbsp sake

·      Salt

Cook the pork belly by placing it in a pot of boiling water seasoned with a little salt, and once it’s fully cooked let it cool to room temperature. Combine the garlic, miso, honey, and sake in a bowl, add the pork, and pickle the meat by leaving it in the marinade overnight. Take the meat out and cut it into cubes.

CHICKEN, ONION, AND SALT

Ingredients

·      2 pieces of chicken breast

·      ¼ of a medium-sized onion

·      ¼ tsp salt

·      ½ tsp minced ginger, chicken bouillon, and sugar

·      ½ tbsp sesame oil, sake, and white sesame seed powder

Cook the chicken either in a microwave, stove, or boil with some salt, and shred it into pieces. Cut up the onion and cook it with the ginger, chicken bouillon, sugar, sesame oil, sake, and white sesame seed powder. Mix the chicken and onion together.

KOMBU AND CHEESE

Ingredients

·      2 oz mild cheese, such as Fontina, chopped into cubes

·      1 tbsp white sesame seed powder

·      3 tbsp chopped shio kombu

·      1 tsbp sesame oil

Mix all the ingredients together and taste-test to make sure the balance of cheese to kombu is appropriate.

BUILDING THE ONIGIRI

You’ll need lots of rice and nori seaweed to start creating the onigiri. Place a large piece of plastic wrap on the work surface in front of you and spread out a thin layer of rice in front of you. Place a little bit of the filling in the center of the rice, bring up the rice surrounding the filling using the plastic wrap, and create a ball of rice with the filling in the center and not falling out. Using your hands while the ball is still wrapped in the plastic wrap, form the ball into a triangle. Remove the plastic wrap, cut a small rectangle of nori big enough to cover a small part of the triangle on both sides like this:

 

 (from Google Images)

And then you’re all done! Enjoy~

Quick Tip!

Hey guys! I’ve been super busy getting ready for vacation and college that I’ve really been slacking. But I promise I’ll be more on top of it from now. Thank you so much for hanging in there!

I want to give you all a motivational tip about baking and cooking: don’t be afraid to experiment with different flavors and add-ins.  Baking is a bit more difficult when it comes to adding whatever you’d like (there’s a lot of chemistry involved), but if you want a cake that’s a bit more citrusy, there’s nothing wrong with adding some lemon, lime, or orange juice to give it that refreshing taste. Cooking is something you can go all-out with; have fun subtracting and adding flavors to suit your tastes. It’s more fun to generate your own recipe than just following someone else’s word-for-word.

Have fun cooking and baking!

Flavor Boost the Devil's Food!

I hope some people have given the Devil’s Food Cupcakes a shot! Now it’s time to up the awesomeness by adding surprise fillings inside! These fillings could even be used to ice your cupcakes, but I filled the inside of mine and topped the cupcakes with whipped cream, and they were absolutely divine! The four special flavors are cinnamon, lime, cherry, and chili powder! The initial filling recipe is the same for all of them, but I mixed in the flavors after letting the filling thicken.

INGREDIENTS

·      6 tbsp granulated sugar

·      3 tbsp all-purpose flour

·      ½ tsp salt

·      1 cup half&half milk

·      3 eggs

·      2 tsp vanilla extract

·      2 oz semi-sweet chocolate

·      Cinnamon powder, to taste (roughly between ½ tsp to 1 tbsp)

·      Chili powder, to taste (roughly between ½ tsp to 1 tbsp)

·      1 lime, squeezed

·      Fresh cherries (as many as you would like cupcakes with the cherry filling)

·      Whipped cream

Combine the sugar, flour, salt, milk, and eggs using a whisk in a small saucepan and heat over medium heat on the stove until the mixture has thickened (this could take anywhere between 5 minutes and 20 minutes). Remove the mixture from the heat and stir in the vanilla and chocolate until the chocolate has completely melted. Let cool to room temperature.

This recipe will fill about 25 cupcakes, so depending on how much of each flavor you would like, divide the filling into as many flavors as you would like. The recipes I’m listing below are measured assuming you’ll be dividing the filling into four parts, so adjust the measurements below to suit your tastes. 

If you haven’t already, hollow out a small section (not all the way to the bottom) in your cupcakes for the fillings.

CINNAMON

Add the amount of cinnamon powder to one of the bowls of chocolate filling and stir to combine. Let the filling sit so it’ll harden, which should take about an hour. Fill an icing bag attached with a fancy tip, or a plastic bag with a small hole cut out, with the new filling and pipe it into the cupcakes. Cover the top of these cupcakes with whipped cream, dust with extra cinnamon, and take a huge bite! All done~

LIME

Add the amount of lime juice to one of the bowls of chocolate filling and stir to combine.

 Let the filling sit so it’ll harden a bit, which should take about 2-3 hours (the liquid juice will cause this filling to take longer to thicken than the cinnamon or chili powder fillings). Fill an icing bag attached with a fancy tip, or a plastic bag with a small hole cut out, with the new filling and pipe it into the cupcakes. Place a thin, round slice of lime in  the middle of the top of the lime cupcakes, surround the slice with a whipped cream pattern, and you’re done!

CHERRY

This cupcake is more about the layering than it is about flavoring the filling. When I tried to flavor the filling with fresh cherry juice, the chocolate flavor was so strong that I couldn’t taste the cherry at all. So the flavor of this cupcake comes from how this cupcake is built. Cut all the cherries in half and remove all the pits. Put one cherry half into the bottom of the holes in the cupcakes, cover the top of the cherry with a little chocolate filling, and repeat. Top with whipped cream and a whole cherry, and it’s complete!

CHILI POWDER

Add the amount of chili powder to one of the bowls of chocolate filling and stir to combine. Let the filling sit so it’ll harden, which should take about an hour. Fill an icing bag attached with a fancy tip, or a plastic bag with a small hole cut out, with the new filling and pipe it into the cupcakes. Cover the top of these cupcakes with whipped cream, place a slice of jalapeño pepper, and you’ve finished!

Thanks for hanging in there! I hope you guys enjoy these flavors as much as I did~ J