LOS ANGELES _ As chef of n/naka, her celebrated kaiseki restaurant in Los Angeles, Niki Nakayama painstakingly and famously tries to never repeat a menu for any diner.
Nakayama and her sous chef and wife, Carole Iida-Nakayama, keep things simpler at home. One of their favorite things to cook? Onigiri, the traditional Japanese rice balls.
Onigiri are the PB&J of Japan. They're packed in school and work lunchboxes and signal homey warmth: lightly seasoned rice stuffed with a filling (pickled ume and cod roe are popular options), shaped by hand and wrapped in nori.
"My grandma used to make onigiri for us to sneak into Disneyland and eat instead of the burgers there," Nakayama recalls, "so I always associate onigiri with fun and family. During the summer, we'd bring them on picnics in the park, too. They're super basic but they're the most comforting way of eating."
Onigiri don't show off the chefs' talent for conceiving intricate kaiseki-style dishes, but Nakayama and Iida-Nakayama say they take this recipe as seriously as any other. And it is a perfect distillation of Nakayama's understanding of and commitment to letting Japanese and Californian ingredients shine.
Here's how they make perfect onigiri:
