Making A Yaki Onigiri

So, the local Family Mart started selling these baked cheese mentaiko onigiri, which looked pretty darn tasty.

So I bought one for breakfast!

But there is just one problem...

The ratio of baked cheese goodness to rice is just too small!! I know that when I take a bite out of this onigiri, I'm just gonna taste a tiny bit of the cheese mentaiko with a load of not-as-tasty rice all around it. That's not what I wanted...

That's when an idea hit me! If there's too little flavour on top, I should make the bottom tasty as well!

Time to make yaki onigiri!!!

WITH BUTTER!!

Yaki onigiri is basically fried onigiri. You fry the outer surface of the onigiri until it's lightly browned, brush the onigiri with soy sauce, and continue frying it until the surface becomes nice and crispy! At least, that's what the recipe said...

Plop!

The plan is to just fry the bottom and the side of the onigiri while leaving the baked cheese mentaiko topping alone. The heat from the pan should theoretically heat up the baked cheese topping a little and soften it. I'm probably breaking a lot of Japanese conventions when doing this but it doesn't hurt to try and experiment a little. 8D;;

My soy sauce "glaze"

I didn't have a brush to glaze the onigiri, so I just poured soy sauce onto a plate and rubbed the partially-fried onigiri on top of it. (Messy, I know.)

Back onto the frying pan you go!!

The onigiri started to break apart a little when I put it back on the pan. I better finish frying it quickly!

Just a few more minutes... and it's done!

It's a little messy...

I used chopsticks to turn the onigiri to fry its sides, but now when I look back, I should have used a pair of tongs. Frying onigiri with chopsticks is hard! (I accidentally dropped the backed cheese side onto the pan too...)

Here's the crispy side!

For a first attempt, it doesn't look bad. I could have fried the sides a little more, but I didn't want to risk having the onigiri break apart (or burn) if I took too long frying it. Anyway, we've waited long enough. Time to see how it tastes!

My camera died near the end and I had to use my phone to take a blurry picture.

And... it's actually not bad, quite tasty! The contrast between the crispy rice and the chewy rice is nice when you chew it, and the burnt soy sauce gives it a nice flavour! The baked cheese mentaiko topping is tasty, as it should be, but as I expected, there isn't enough of it on the onigiri. I couldn't savour it long enough since there's so little of it...

Good thing I fried the bottom half of the onigiri. It didn't feel like I'm eating just plain onigiri and there's just enough flavour to go around it. I'm quite pleased with the result. I wouldn't mind making another of this yaki onigiri, given the chance. >8D