I have my own variant of japanese rice balls that I was hoping for some advice on.
One thing to keep in mind is that I'm a college graduate student and put a high priority on minimizing costs and preparation time (and prefer to make things in bulk).
I buy all my ingredients in bulk and try to make a weeks worth of meals in advance.
First I cook a variant of Chicken Adobo. In addition to the normal ingredients, I add about a quarter of a cup of capers and a half a cup of green olives. Additionally, I cut-up the chicken thighs in advance (because I'm guessing this will help get more flavor into the center of the meat, and also cut down on cooking time).
I then wrap saran-wrap around a small plastic cup, cover the walls with about a quarter of an inch of rice, and insert about 2 tablespoons of chicken/capers/olives. Then I cover the top with rice and tie up the saran-wrap for a completed rice ball.
So I have two questions:
- What do you think is the best way to make and store these riceballs in bulk? Am I forced to make them daily, or can I make them in bulk on a weekly basis without affecting the quality too much?
I've considered making the chicken-adobo in bulk and then freezing or refrigerating it, but the chicken-adobo's sauce gelatinizes and reheating it is fairly awkward and affects the quality of the meat. I've considered storing the riceballs saran-wrapped individually in my fridge/freezer, but they begin to dry out in the fridge and have weird consistency when coming out of the freezer.
- Do you have any suggestions for a more refined chicken recipe? I'm pretty happy with the mixture of sweet&sour from the capers and soysauce - but I really just threw together chicken adobo and added capers to it. I tried cooking the capers and olives with the chicken and ended up with too much flavor from the olives (it just made the whole thing taste like olive water). Additionally, I end up throwing away a lot of extra vinegar+soy sauce at the end of the day, and it might be better if I chose a chicken recipe that didn't end up with a hefty amount of sauce when finished.