Just Bento

This furikake may not even look like furikake, since it’s wet, but it can be used in every way dry furikake can. You can keep it in the refrigerator for a week or so, or freeze it in small batches. And since it’s using radish leaves (leftover from making radish pickles for example), it’s very frugal and nutritious too. It’s a vegan variation of the first furikake recipe I posted, and just as delicious.

Recipe: Spicy Radish Leaf Furikake

• Radish leaves, well washed
• Sesame oil
• Dried Thai red chili pepper, seeds removed and shredded (you can leave the seeds in if you like it really spicy. You can use another type of red chili pepper too)
• Soy sauce

The amount of ingredients varies according to the amount of radish leaves you have. The first thing to do is to blanch the radish leaves in plenty of boiling water for a couple of minutes until they are wilted. Then, drain them well, refresh them in cold water, and squeeze out all the moisture out of them as well as you can.

Chop up the radish leaves finely, then put the chopped leaves in a cup. For each cup of chopped blanched leaves, use about 2 tsp. of dark sesame oil, 1 Thai red chili pepper deseeded and shredded or chopped, and 1 to 1.5 Tbs. of soy sauce.

Heat up a large frying pan with the sesame oil over medium heat. Add the shredded red chili pepper, then the radish leaves. (Adding the chili pepper at the beginning of the cooking process makes the heat more subtle; if you want it really spicy, add the chili pepper towards the end of the cooking process.)

Sauté until the radish leaves are quite dry but still green, not brown. Push everything to one side, add the soy sauce to the hot pan surface so it sizzles, then mix it all together. Take off the heat.

Cool and store in the refrigerator for about a week. You can also freeze it in small batches.

(The chili on top of the green mound is just there for decoration by the way; the working chili is in the mix!)

Radish leaf brown rice onigiri

Here’s what I did with this batch. I mixed about 2 tablespoons of it per cup of cooked still-warm brown rice, then formed the mixed rice into onigiri, using a little bit of salt on my hands. I packed them with fresh shiso leaves, which we used to wrap the onigiri when we ate them.

Here are the onigiri sitting on a stone bench somewhere in the Provence.

As we ate them, my mom and I turned to each other and said, almost simultaneously, “Nothing is as good to eat outdoors as a great onigiri, even in France!” The (Swiss) Guy nodded in agreement.