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Happy Rice (3 ways)

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One of my Hilo aunties introduced me to this rice dish when she brought it to a family potluck years ago. She called it "happy rice." It's fairly simple to make and has only 4 ingredients in it: rice, edamame, ajitsuke nametake (cooked seasoned enoki mushrooms), and wakame chazuke (dry seaweed and rice ball) rice seasoning. One recipe calls for a lot of rice, which makes it a perfect side dish to bring to a party. And one recipe also uses up the whole bag of shelled edamame and the entire jar of nametake and chazuke, which I love because then all the ingredients are used up.

So tonight I really wanted to eat this rice to accompany the yakitori sticks I prepared, but I didn't want to cut the recipe in half or even thirds and then be stuck with storing the unused leftover ingredients in the fridge and cupboard. So I made the decision to just go for it and cook the entire 7 cups of rice for one recipe. The imminent question I had all afternoon was: How would I get my family of 4 to eat all that rice? After some thought I figured it out. I know, I'll present it to them in 3 slightly different forms! Haha, sneaky yes, but effective!

Happy Rice (3 ways)

The first choice was obvious, just serve the mixed rice as is. Second, I used a plastic mold to make onigiri (triangular rice balls) and then cut a sheet of nori to wrap on the bottom. Last was my favorite out of the three - happy rice inari sushi, made with store-bought pre-seasoned fried tofu pouches. It was so yummy, I ended up eating that one the most.

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