Onigirazu #1 Hamburger

Hi Everyone,


Today I decided to make my second attempt ever at Onigirazu.
Onigirazu is similar to Onigiri. Onigirazu, instead of shaping it with your hands (which is what the Nigiru means), you simply sandwich it between nori. The ZU in Onigirazu is a negative, to say it's not shaped with the hands....my knowledge of Japanese is limited. I'm going to hope Emily shares some notes T.T

I figured since I had the ingredients for a hamburger it'd be the first one I'd make for you guys.
You can choose whatever fillings you like for onigirazu and I hope to be adding a few more filling ideas in the future.

Anyway here we go!

To make 2 Onigirazu you'll need:

Cling wrap
onigirazu shaper (OPTIONAL)
Approximately 2 cups of japanese cooked rice, hot and seasoned with salt (to your taste).
2 sheets of nori
Approximately 1/4 pound of ground beef (you can use other kinds of meat if you don't like beef)
1 slice of processed cheese (I chose white processed cheese because I keep hearing it's seen a lot at Japanese grocery stores)
1-2 thin slices of tomato
1-2 thin slices of onion
Kewpie Mayo
1 lettuce leaf (I was going to put this in mine but.... I kinda over filled them...and couldn't fit it in)

                                                 

 Other options: whatever you like putting on a burger ^.^ I                                                                 was tempted to buy an avocado for this...ya ya I know "ew!"

Shape your ground meat of choice and cook, after I took this picture I put cheese on them
I was cooking burgers for dinner at the time too, so the bigger ones were definitely not for onigirazu.

First lay down a piece of nori sheet and put a thin layer of rice if using a shaper try to gauge how much filling you plan to put in and try to adjust the amount of rice. Those free handing it, make a thin layer of rice on the nori, when I made it without a shaper I aimed for a square shape.

Add your fillings
....I kind of over filled mine this time....hey I was hungry

Then add another thin layer of rice.

If you have the shaper you'll use the little mold pusher to flatten the onigirazu down a bit, pretty much the same if you use an onigiri mold when you make onigiri.

Then fold up the onigirazu, this one i had too close to the end, i suggest putting it in the center.

Wrap in Cling wrap and let it sit for a while. This is to let the nori soften up.

 ...mine looks so ugly T.T but he'll be tasty I just know it.

After about 10 minutes or so take a sharp knife and cut it in half. Remove the cling wrap after cutting.

Put it in your bento and let it completely cool before putting on the lid.

And now it's done ^.^

Don't you just love Totoro?

.....what?....I'm not the only 28 year old with a Totoro bento

....that's my story and I'm sticking to it

I hope you try this for yourself. Like always if you have an requests please leave me a comment and I'll try my best ^_^