Onigiri are a delicious and fascinating food. You take white rice, mold it into a shape and give it some kind of delicious filling. It’s a simple process with a lot of room for creativity. One YouTuber, Onigiri Gekijou, has taken onigiri creativity to a whole new level though. They create beautiful “onigiri art” by molding the rice balls into unexpected shapes and flavors.
To make these amazing pieces, Gekijou has come up with various techniques to create unique textures and colors. Luckily for us, they have posted how-to videos on YouTube that walk us through how they come up with their creations. For example, in their cat onigiri video they show us how to mold the rice into the shape of a cat head.Thin strips of dry seaweed are used to create the cat’s mouth. From there, we learn how to make the cat’s pink nose color by mixing ketchup and mayo together. Seaweed paste is applied with a toothpick to make the eyes. Within the four and a half minute video, we learn how to fully create this beautiful and detailed calico cat head. It’s fun to watch and even more fun to create yourself!
Onigiri Gekijou has more onigiri making videos on YouTube. Besides the cat head, you can learn how to make a seal, alien heads or a gas mask out of rice and other edible pieces. All of the videos are fairly short and entertaining to watch. Gekijou only began making videos about a month ago, so there will certainly be more onigiri delights to come. While we wait, we can use the time to improve our rice molding skills. After all, a good shape is the key to an excellent onigiri.
