It appears everybody’s obtained a favourite rice dish, from aromatic biryani to crackly tahdig to tacky arancini, which is why it’s certainly one of my go-tos. Particularly for varsity lunches. These may be difficult—you want meals that’ll maintain properly for a couple of hours, not make an enormous mess, are fast to place collectively within the morning rush, and are straightforward to eat. This nifty device, nonetheless, makes lovely rice balls that may do all the above.
Rice balls are generally present in Korean and Japanese cuisines. Impressed by the movies on my TikTok feed of Asian dad and mom and their picturesque, finger-food-friendly youngsters’ lunches, I began including molded rice balls to my daughter, Elara’s lunch. I’d seen triangle-shaped onigiri and even rice formed into little teddy bear heads and hearts in lunchboxes on social media. Then I noticed the rice ball mould, which appeared bite-sized and doable sufficient for a busy school-day morning. Simply fill it together with your selection of rice, white, sticky, or brown, and provides it a shake.
The way to make any type of rice ball
A number of newbie tricks to utilizing rice ball molds: You need to use heat rice to make rice balls, so when you’re beginning with leftover rice, heat it up first. Additionally, make sure you moist the within of the mould with a bit water to stop the rice from clinging to it. Sticky rice tends to carry one of the best, particularly if in case you have a child who likes to shake their lunchbox into oblivion.
Now let’s discuss add-ins: You possibly can add spices and seasonings like furikake, a Japanese mix typically manufactured from seaweed, sesame seeds, and bonito flakes, to the rice earlier than shaking Elara loves avocado rice balls, the place I mash some avocado till it’s barely chunky and blend it with some sticky rice earlier than molding. You possibly can add finely chopped veggies, grated hard-boiled eggs, tofu, pickled greens, canned tuna, and a lot extra to make them flavorful and personalised. I’ve even repurposed day-old curry by mixing it into basmati rice and shaking away. You possibly can actually pack rather a lot into these tiny rice balls, so get artistic with it and make the most of what you could have round.
And in case your youngsters are into packing their very own lunch, it is easy sufficient for them to do it themselves, when you take a sip of your morning espresso.
