Yaki-Onigiri in Lightly Seasoned Dashi (Japanesese)

I like bold flavours generally, but when I'm a bit under the weather or my stomach feels weird, I love this rice soup!  This one is my creation and is easy, but not to steal ideas without crediting, I took the idea of the onigiri in the soup from RunnyRunny999, a really funny (sensitive) guy on YouTube I've been following for years!  So here is how I did it!

(for 2 people)

For the broth:

-4-5cups water

-a handful of katsuobushi (shaved dried bonito)

-1 piece of kombu

-some mirin and soy sauce

-sesame oil (optional)

-1 cup cooked Japanese rice (here I mixed half Japanese rice, half barley, and a couple sunflower seeds, but you do need a good ratio of white Japanese rice if you want it to hold it's shape)

-thin julienned carrots, cabbage, thinly sliced leeks...  really, any veggie of your choice

-1-2tbsp julienned ginger

-some chopped spring onions for garnish

-sesame for garnish

-cooked meat of your choice, I used leftover JangJoRim (recipe at the end) and used the egg as a topping and the liquid for seasoning, but any cooked meat and a hard boiled egg will do

First, make the dashi (broth) by putting the water in a pot with the katsuobushi and kombu, covering and leaving it to rest for 2-4 hours.  Then, slowly bring to a boil BUT remove before it boils (when you see bubbles stuck around the inside of the pot, but they're not moving).  Filter and you got a delicious dashi, base to everything Japanese!

Cook rice and let cool down enough to handle.  Prepare a small bowl with warm water and a little bit of salt to wet your hands so the rice doesn't stick, then form 2 or 3 the onigiri with all the rice.  Lightly wet your hands and press the rice not too much but still firmly (or it won't hold while grilling) into a flat triangle, or even easier, a flat disk.  Heat a griddle pan or pan on medium-high heat, lightly grease then grill the onigiri on both sides until charred or nicely browned.  When you're not using the yaki-onigiri in a soup, you can also cook a little both sides again with a little brush of soy sauce!

For the soup, in a wok, add a little oil and stif-fry ginger until fragrant.  Then add the julienned veggies until wilted.  Then add dashi and bring to a boil.  When the veggies are cooked to your taste, season with mirin and soy sauce (JangJoRim liquid in my case) to taste, mirin being a little sweet and soy sauce salty.  Simmer for a minute to burn the alcohol from the mirin.  Lastly, turn off the heat, and If you use sesame oil, add just a little (1/4tsp to 1/2tsp not to overpower the light dashi aromas).

To serve, put one onigiri in a wide bowl, add shredded cooked meat, then pour the soup.  Top with sesame, green onions, thinly sliced mushrooms, Nanami Togarashi...

Here's what JangJoRim looks like, in the green square plate at the bottom, it's beef in soy sauce with hard-boiled eggs, I use an hybrid of these two recipe by Maangchi and Aeri:

Maangchi->  http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/jangjorim

Aeri Lee->     http://aeriskitchen.com/2008/10/korean-beef-side-dish-jangjorim/