Chimaki Chinese Style Glutinous Rice Balls

Serves 3-4
40 minutes

Rated by 37 people

Click to rate this recipe:

Bring Japanese flavours into a succulent Chinese comfort food with this Chinese style glutinous rice, or chimaki, recipe. Immensely popular in Chinese restaurants, this warming snack is shaped like triangular onigiri rice balls before being steamed to create deliciously moreish sticky rice parcels. This variation is flavoured with ginger, pork, shiitake mushrooms and soy sauce for a mouth-watering Japanese twist.

Ingredients

• 20g peppers
• 50g carrots
• 20g ginger
• 20g seasoned shiitake mushrooms
• 30g cooked chashu bbq pork
• 2 cups glutinous mochi rice
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp chinese stock granules
• 3ml sesame oil
• rice bran oil or a flavourless vegetable oil

How To Prepare

Chop your peppers, carrots, ginger, shiitake mushrooms and BBQ Pork Chashu into small pieces. Wash the mochi rice and drain well, using a bamboo zaru if you have one.
Warm a splash of rice bran or vegetable oil in a frying pan. Add your vegetables and pork chashu, then stir fry. Next, add the mochi rice, the soy sauce, sugar, stock granules and 2 cups of water.
Allow the rice to cook for 10 minutes, before covering and letting the rice to steam. Being careful not to let the mixture burn, cook until all the water is absorbed, then stop the heat.
Bring a pan of water to the boil, then place your steamer on top. In the meantime, divide the rice mixture into seven and try to form into triangle shapes. Wrap well in foil and arrange in the steamer. Steam for 25 minutes.
Your chimaki are now ready to enjoy.

Tips and Information

• Chimaki are traditionally made by wrapping the rice in leaves before steaming. Bamboo, lotus and pandan leaves are all used depending on the area the chimaki are made in. These can be tricky to find, but are well worth it if you want the ultimate chimaki experience.

• If you’re making the chimaki in advance, you can cook them and, after removing the foil, freeze them. Next time you want to enjoy some, just pop in the microwave for a minute or two.