Rice Balls
I used to know these Malaysian girls who made these squares
of pressed rice (called nasi impit) around exams. It seemed such a simple exam
time snack and since we had some sushi rice (glutinous rice) left over we
thought making rice balls would be a good idea.
They taste something like sushi balls realistically as we
filled them with sushi type vegetables. The exceptions were the sundried tomato
(which was so good in it!) and tamarind water. There’s this lovely Indian
vegetarian restaurant in Dublin that does these pani puri that we’ve become a
bit obsessed with. We stumbled on some tamarind concentrate in a Middle Eastern
shop recently though and have been looking for a use for it and this seemed the
opportunity. Tamarind gives off a kind of spicy minty taste, though we found we
should have added more in the recipe below as we couldn’t taste it very
strongly. It’s not the most common ingredient either, so you could just use soy
sauce or anything to your taste.
What we used:
-
1 cup sushi rice
-
1/2 pepper
-
3 mushrooms
-
1/3
cucumber
-
4-5 sundried tomatoes
-
3 teaspoons tamarind concentrate, diluted in 1/3
cup water (though I would use more on redoing this recipe!)
1.
Cook the rice until mushy enough to stick and
mould into balls.
2.
Chop the vegetables very finely. Add the
tamarind water/sauce
3.
Get about handful size amounts of rice (once
cooled somewhat, so you don’t burn your hands!) and mould it into a cup shape
so it sticks together. Add the filling. Cover the hole with about a tablespoon
more rice and mould into a ball. Realistically you can also try making these
smaller.
4.
Cover with some oil and place into an oven at
about 200
̊ for 30mins (or until browned).
The result is a rice ball that’s crispy on the outside, soft
and warm on the inside and filled with minty spicy crunchy goodness on the
inside. Conor said making more bite size versions would be especially nice…
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