Hina Ningyo Sushi (Dolls Made of Rice)
Author: 
Recipe type: Appetizer, Side Dish
 
A festive sushi for celebrating Japanese Girl's Day or Hinamatsuri.
Ingredients
  • 2 cups cooked sushi rice
  • 2 to 4 inari ageh (deep fried tofu), or pre-cooked packaged inari
  • 2 eggs
  • Roasted sushi nori (seaweed)
  • Kamaboko (fish cake)
  • 1 snow pea
  • Dashi shoyu (seasoned soy sauce)
  • Oil for cooking eggs
  • Optional for the sushi doll head: uzura tamago (quail egg) or sato imo (taro)
Instructions
  1. Prepare kinshi tamago (see chirashi sushi post in recipe index for details). This is a very thin egg omelette. Proper kinshi tamago should not be browned.
  2. Combine 2 eggs with dashi shoyu. If you don't have seasoned soy sauce, use a dash of salt or combination of soy sauce with dried dashi
  3. (bonito stock) powder. (see recipe index for homemade dashi)
  4. Using a very small pan (24 cm), heat a very small amount of oil, pour a very small amount of egg (just enough to cover the pan) and cook on medium low until just cooked. Flip omelette over, cook another 2 minutes until firm. NOTE: I have a very small rectangular pan so I ended up with rectangular egg kimono. These required trimming.
  5. Remove egg and allow it to cool. Don't slice the egg. Make a second thin egg omelette.
  6. Make sushi rice (see recipe index for sushi rice), or use my short-cut, "Sushi Taro" package - mix powder awase-zu with warm rice.
  7. Set aside a small portion of the rice for the sushi doll's heads.
  8. Using saran wrap, place a heaping scoop of rice on top of saran wrap. Close saran wrap and shape rice into an oval. (see recipe for sake onigiri regarding rice ball making tips.)
  9. Make two (2) oval rice balls. Rest on a dish, side by side. If you do this while the rice is still warm, it is more pliable and can easily be made to stand.
  10. Prepare inari ageh according to package instructions. I highly recommend this short-cut over cooking and seasoning inari ageh for this project.
  11. Cut each end of the inari pouch along the SIDE folds to create one large rectangular piece of inari ageh.
  12. Wrap the rice balls with the inari ageh. Be careful not to make the rice balls too big. If you do, you will require 2 inari ageh per doll, instead of 1.
  13. Wrap the inari kimono with the tamagoyaki kimono. I had to trim the edges and then I rounded the back "cape" of the dolls.
  14. Make little rice balls for the heads of the sushi dolls. If you do this while the sushi is relatively warm, it will easily adhere to the body of the doll.
  15. OPTIONAL: The original recipe called for boiled quail eggs for the heads of the sushi dolls. The quail egg is held in place using a toothpick. I felt this was an expensive item for the doll's head (especially as I only made two dolls). A less expensive alternative is sato imo or taro root. The Japanese supermarket sells frozen satoimo balls for relatively cheap, but I didn't have this ingredient in my freezer, which is why I went with the cheaper and more readily-available rice!
  16. Accesorize! Cut nori (seaweed) into desired hair pieces. Make bangs and long hair for the empress and a Japanese chonmage, a traditional male hairstyle from the Edo period seen on men (you might recall images of samurai with the little loop of hair on the top of the head) for the emperor. NOTE: I recommend waiting to add the "hair" until the rice cools a bit, otherwise your hair will wilt!
  17. You don't have to make eyes, but I did - out of scraps of nori. It was difficult to pick-up the little scraps of nori but I managed. It easily stuck to the warm sushi. Kitchen tweezers might work well in this situation.
  18. Trim snow pea lengthwise, using the flat portion of the pea and discarding (or eating) the portion with the beans). Shape this into a sword for the emperor. Place this in front of him.
  19. Slice kamaboko to become the empresses fan. Place this in front of her.
Recipe by Bebe Love Okazu at https://bebeloveokazu.com/2012/03/09/hina-ningyo-sushi-dolls-made-of-rice-hinamatsuri-japanese-girls-day-2012/