“Once you’ve met someone you never really forget them. It just takes a while for your memories to return.” -Zeniba from Spirited Away. One of my favorite movies is definitely Spirited Away. Spirited Away is a 2001 animated movie by Hayao Miyazaki about a young girl who finds herself working in a bathhouse in a spirit world in order to try and free her parents from a witch’s curse. I know that sounds like a crazy plot, but this really is an amazing film. One day, when the main protagonist, Chihiro, was feeling hopeless about getting her parents back, one of her only friends, Haku, gave her some Japanese rice balls to cheer her up. You see, here’s the thing about Miyazaki films: he makes animated foods look so. freaking. delicious. And these rice balls are no exception. In fact, they are so yummy looking that I made some over the summer when I first watched this movie. So basically I had a better understanding of the what the heck I was doing this time around.
This is a relatively easy recipe that you could make at home, so I am going to walk you through it with a little more detail than normal. The first step is to gather your ingredients. All you need is sushi rice (and optional vinegar, sugar, oil, etc to make it more flavorful), and your filling (I used tuna/mayo and egg, but there are other authentic Japanese filling options such as salmon, pickled plum, seaweed etc. The filling is never specified in the film).
Next, you clean your rice and cook it according to your rice cooker or whatever it says on the sushi rice package.
While it’s cooking, you can prepare your fillings. I just combined the tuna and mayo and made some scrambled eggs. Once the rice is cool enough to handle, dip your hands into water and grab a chunk of rice and form it into a triangle with a divot for the filling.
Fill the divot with your filling and place some more sushi rice on top to cover. Form into a triangle shape.
Here is the finished product!
I loooove these rice balls. Mostly because I love rice. But the tuna is so good too. You see? These rice balls are so easy to make, and the are so delicious too. Now if you haven’t seen Spirited Away yet… watch it!
Where to watch Spirited Away: HBO Max
Reference images:
Siena Kelly
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Food And Films 