Michelin-starred n/naka chefs make onigiri, Japanese comfort food

hi I'm Genevieve comme the cooking editor of the LA Times and I'm here today with these two masterful chefs and they're going to show us how to make vinegary which are Japanese rice balls muniqi is a very common and traditional and the household thing that Japanese people love to eat my first love of it comes from my grandma making it for us Baez associate on EE DS with fun and family and it's a comfort food for me yeah definitely it's always been about just some kind of money meant with family or just hanging out at the house watching TV all day and just you know my mom would make it all the time I think with onigiri it's one of those things where we'll have so many experiences throughout their lives with it in Japan that I feel like it's very subjective of what you think is gonna be the best one of course the Vice quality has to be good the temperature has to be good the fillings all have to be you know really well thought out on some level but I feel like to make it the best of the best of the best is very subjective so the rice that we use at ananka is a blend of Japanese rice and California Japanese rice so two cups [Music] so your first win on the water like the moment it covers strain it out right away and then I generally like to wash the rinse out the water at least four times I like to see how clear the water comes when I do rice I like to put the water this is it's actually really popular right now in Japan and they're called Donna bays this one is particularly made for cooking rice the lining of it really helps so that the rice doesn't get too sticky and it also has these lines that tell you where to put the water so I'm going to put the rice in [Music] one of the most important things about the water is it has to be filtered cold water so this is pre measured at 350 yes and then usually I like to soak for at least 30 minutes [Music] I was like to look at rice and have it be shiny shiny bright you know kind of fluff it up a little bit hurry gently you don't want to crush any other kernels up just a little bit to cover this is a Japanese sea salt Biagio so you put it a little bit here and then you grab a little bit on your tip and then just so 30 kind of shaped so from this point you just like pack it a little bit so it doesn't break and then depending on which nodi I'm going to just use this one for the mint I cool [Music] this one is the bonito with soy sauce mirin and sesame seed so I'm gonna sort of just mix it around like this because when you're doing a mixed aisle it's really hard to do the rice ball shape by hand so I'm gonna add a little pinch of salt to this one instead of having it on my hands and then after you have it into the shape and you pinch it in you go sideways then you can shape it sideways so depending on what your favorites are I think grandma will make it to your liking what I like about any of you is when the rice has that wonderful chute and the temperature is just like we warm not hot not cold like room temperature for me and then the balance of the filling and the rice is important for me because I don't like it when it's too salty or too bland how about you for me the the naughty on that outside is kind of critical I need a little bit of that crisp crunch when you first into it yes the flavor of the known even the fragrance [Music] you

Channel: Los Angeles Times Food

Views: 79,361

Rating: 4.9173679 out of 5

Keywords: LA, Times, Food, Onigiri, n/naka, rice

Id: euokpPVo58w

Length: 5min 5sec (305 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 01 2019