Perilla oil and seaweed rice balls

Name: Perilla oil and seaweed rice balls
Total time: 10 min
Yield: 2 servings
Ingredients: Cooked brown rice, cooled 320 g; Toasted seaweed (gim) 4 sheets; Perilla oil 1½ tbsp; Sesame seeds 1 tbsp; Salt ⅓ tsp; Soy sauce 1 tsp

A recipe with no heat at all. It is the simplest way to use perilla oil without cooking it, and there is a reason the rice is cooled first.

2 servings10 min

Ingredients

Cooked brown rice, cooled320 g
Toasted seaweed (gim)4 sheets
Perilla oil1½ tbsp
Sesame seeds1 tbsp
Salt⅓ tsp
Soy sauce1 tsp

Method

Cook the brown rice and let it cool. Perilla oil poured onto hot rice loses its aroma.
Tear the four sheets of seaweed by hand. Hands beat scissors here — uneven pieces give better texture.
In a bowl, add the rice with 1½ tbsp perilla oil, 1 tsp soy sauce and the salt and fold with a spatula, cutting rather than stirring. Mashing crushes the grains.
Crush the sesame seeds between your fingers as you add them with the torn seaweed, and fold lightly.
Wet your hands and shape into bite-size balls. Do not squeeze hard.

Cooking note

The point of this recipe is that nothing gets heated.

Perilla oil must not be heated. Its alpha-linolenic acid has three double bonds, which makes it the fastest-oxidising of the common culinary oils, and its smoke point is low. Used in fried rice, the aroma and the ALA go together.

A rice ball is the most honest way to use perilla oil. There is no flame anywhere in it.

The rice is cooled for two reasons.

First, aroma. Perilla oil's aroma is volatile. Poured onto freshly cooked hot rice, it leaves with the steam. Letting the rice cool first keeps the most of it.

Second, resistant starch. Cooking rice and then cooling it converts some starch into resistant starch, which is not digested in the small intestine and travels to the colon behaving like fibre — the phenomenon set out in this site's carbohydrate entry. A rice ball made from cooled rice beats one made from fresh rice on this point.

Why brown rice. It carries more fibre, magnesium, thiamin and selenium than white. But rice takes up more inorganic arsenic than other grains, and the arsenic concentrates in the bran, so brown rice carries more of it. Rinsing and boiling in plenty of water, then draining, reduces it. Not eating one grain and only that grain is the safer habit.

Do not mash when mixing. Hold the spatula upright and cut through the rice rather than stir. Mashed, the grains burst and turn gluey. Do not squeeze hard when shaping either — just enough to hold.

Why tear the seaweed by hand. Scissors give even pieces and a monotonous texture. Torn by hand, large and small pieces mix and the bite comes alive.

Why crush the sesame. The hull has to break for the aroma to come out. Whole seeds pass through largely undigested.

Per serving:

	Per serving
Brown rice 160 g	197 kcal, fibre 2.6 g, magnesium 62 mg
Toasted seaweed, 2 sheets	about 10 kcal
Perilla oil ¾ tbsp	about 93 kcal
Sesame seeds ½ tbsp	about 26 kcal
Total	about 326 kcal

Watch the sodium. Seasoned seaweed already contains salt and oil. Plain toasted seaweed plus your own salt is easier to control.

Follow the storage rules for perilla oil. Small bottles, refrigerated once opened, used within a month or two. If it smells stale or like paint, throw it out. A rice ball made with rancid perilla oil is not a dish that delivers ALA; it is one that delivers oxidised lipids.

If you pack it for lunch. Perilla oil keeps oxidising at room temperature. Eat it the same day, and in summer pack it with a cool block.

Ingredients used here

Oils & fats

Early research

Perilla oil

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