Rainbow Trout Onigiri

One evening this summer I tried my hand at making onigiri for lunch.  This, in many regards, is meant to be a quick-and-dirty way to turn some left over scraps in the refrigerator into lunch for the next day, or so I have read.  So how did I do?  Meeeh--it took me a lot longer to put things together as I fumbled with the rice and the filling.  I also bought improperly sized nori.

Instead of more traditional Japanese fillings and toppings, I chose to make a teriyaki rainbow trout filling, and used a teaspoon of laoganma Chinese chili sauce.  Also, I am not one for hand-sculpting aesthetically pleasing creations, and that tends to apply to food I try to sculpt.  Still, the form and taste turned out to be all right.

The rainbow trout was diced and sauteed in soy sauce with some sugar and diced onions.

Rather than inside the filling, I put a teaspoon of laoganma chili sauce on top.

Many times over, I also made the classic noob mistake when making any grain or rice wrapped Asian delectable: using too much filling because I have no spatial intuition for the volume of filling and the available surface area of the wrapping material.  I only got better at judging this for dumplings because I have made so many.

Along the way, I also learned how to skin a fillet using a large Chinese kitchen knife.  Cool, right?