Japanese Rice Balls

This is the packaging for a japanese rice ball. Don't ask me why they call it "Rice Ball" even if it's triangle-shaped, i have no idea.

Anyway, This kind of "snack" is really common in japan. In europe we use sandwiches, here they use rice balls. Various flavors are available: Mayo and Tuna, Mayo and Chicken, Onion and Tuna, Fish balls, and so on. Their expire date is up 2-3 days after production date.

So, there is one big problem with rice balls...and not easy to solve: They are covered with a paper of dried seaweed to make it more tasty. The problem is that you cannot cover the rice ball with seawed at production time, or the seaweed would become completely wet and elastic (instead of dry and crispy as it should be).

I found very ingenious how the solved the problem. They put the riceball on the inner side, then there is a thin plastic layer, then the seaweed, then the outside plastic layer.

Sounds easy, but how do you then make sure that you can quickly cover the rice ball with the seaweed without touching the riceball or the seaweed with your (dirty) hands?... well, they found the following way, which in 3 moves, not only easily opens the plastic wrap, but does the whole thing for you...check it out!

Here the instructions:

Read from right to left: (1) Pull the central band (2) all the way to the opposite side and then (3) pull apart the two remaining triangles.

Here, for you, i did the test :)


Pull the side triangles...

And here the final product, without even breaking the frail seaweed!