I completed my grocery shopping mission last night minutes before the hypermarket was closed for the day. Hurray!
With the fresh supply I made my boy something new today – mini onigiri stuffed sweet bean curd (ajitsuke inari).
I seldom make onigiri for snack because my boy is a slow rice eater and can not finish them during the short morning break. But this time I made him the mini version hoping that he will finish them.
This is a close-up photo of the two-coloured mini onigiri bears.
I made the onigiri in two colors – white and purple. The white ones are stuffed with normal rice while the purple ones are rice mixed with pureed purple sweet potato. I love the outcome.
The onigiri is turned into mini teddy bears (without the ears though) with cheese and seaweed. Besides the two inari, I included two cherries and slices of Japanese cucumbers in the bento as well.
Everything fit into the small Winnie the Pooh bento box and I guess the amount of food in this bento box was just nice for JY.
I don’t have a round shape rice mold, so I made the onigiri using cling wrap as shown in the photos.
All I need to do is just to twist the cling wrap tightly to form the rice ball.
Hope this is helpful to those who have no rice mold just like me but would like to make a rice ball.
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Can i ask do you steam the rice in the morning to make the onigiri? can we make the round rice onigiri a night before and put in the fridge?
As i think it will become dry in the morning?
bobo – Usually what I did is I steam it the night before right but I keep the cooked rice in the rice cooker to keep warm till the morning. I think if you keep them in fridge, at least you need to warm them up first before you use it again the next day right?
So sweet. I really want to try coloring our rice one of these days.
Shanon – Yeah, I love the outcome of the colour, plus this is natural colouring so should be healthy right.
I love the outcome, too!~
Awww, they are super cute!!!
Susan – Thank you!
Emily – Yeah, I like the colour too
oh ya.. i can keep warm in the rice cooker.. will try that other time.. as i really short of time if i make in the morning.. mission impossible..
maybe i will try in a Sunday morning instead..:)
bobo – Yes, maybe you can try once during weekend and you estimate the time if you can make it in the morning?
I love the purple onigiri! I will try with purple potato and see whether my kids will love it … Thanks for the idea
This bento is so adorable!
Lia Chen – Actually my boy like purple potato compare to others. They taste better with the aroma and the sweetness. Glad that you like it.
Very creative and cute! Really makes me smile ;D
anncoo – Thank you!
I just bought some Hawaiian sweet potato this weekend. I am planning on baking it and putting slices in the freezer for cutting into kawaii shapes for bento, but now I can save the scraps to make purple rice! What a great idea, thanks KidsDreamWork!
Sonoma Bento – You are welcome! Totally agreed with you, making purple rice is so much less work than cutting the sweet potato in kawaii shapes! And somehow I tend to steam the potato too dry and they fall apart when I cut
Love the purple bear! Thanks for the tip. We can try other sweet potato col too. Orange, yellow! Plus it’s full of nutrients too!
Karen – Yeah, then there will be lots of colourful potato rice balls!
Love the purple onigiri
Will probably try to do it some day…
Shanie – Hope you have a fun time making purple onigiri!