Inarizushi, Japanese family-style sushi

This is Inari-zushi that fried tofu skin (aburaage) cooked in soy sauce and sugar, then stuffed with a mixture of vinegared rice(sumeshi), brown sea vegetable(hijiki), boiled carrots cut into fine strips and lightly roasted sesames. It is prepared on auspicious event. I often cook it for family picnics, outings and an athletic meet that held at my daughter's school every fall and allows to bring bento.

Aburaage is a fried tofu and you can easily get it in Japan. If you cannot, you'd better cook it by yourself. At first drain water off a whole of tofu to roll with paper towel and to press with something put on it. And cut it into thin slices and deep frying first at 110~120 °C then at 180~200 °C again until light bown. Dried hijiki needs to rince with cold water and soak in the water for 5-10minutes.
Cut it in half to opened into pockets creating spaces for the rice. Then boil it for 3 minutes to remove the excess oil and dry with paper towels. Let it simmer gently with 200ml water, 30ml soysauce and 30ml sugar for 20minutes in a pot with a small lid resting directly on aburaage. Let it cool in the broth.

Polish 360ml uncooked rice and soak it into water for 30minutes before cooking. After cooking, add the mixture of 50ml rice vinegar, 10ml sugar and a pinch of salt while it's hot. Then mix with a rubber spatula fanning it to let it cool. Add hijiki, boiled carrots and roasted sesames.

Lightly press to remove the excess broth and open the pocket. Then stuff inside with the rice mixture. Fold in the open side to close the pocket.