A long, long time ago, I was watching a Japan travel video, where someone purchased these red clam onigiri(rice balls), stored in the clam shells, and enjoyed them on a coastal train ride. Now, I would have totally linked the video, but it was years ago and I honestly could not find it anywhere. But just know that was where the idea came from for me to make clam onigiri served in clamshells. Since I was using clams, I had to first decide which clam to use. Funnily enough, manila, littleneck, and quahog(also called chowder) clams are all the same clam, just at different stages, and therefore sizes, in life. Quahog clams are the largest size of that clam, so it just made sense to go with those, since I was stuffing an entire rice ball into the clam shells. The major factor in cooking with a Quahog versus a manilla is that Quahog clams can get tough and rubbery more easily compared to their smaller counterparts, which are more tender and soft. So I figured chopping up the clam meat could at least help with processing it a bit, since the clams themselves will be cooked with some other ingredients, then folded through the rice to form my rice balls. Additionally, I wanted to garnish these onigiri with sea grapes(if you ever played Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you’ll probably recognize them at least). Sea grapes are a kind of algae that consists of little green spheres attached to a single stem, easily resembling green grapes. They kind of taste like seaweed-flavored popping boba, and are very pleasant when paired with seafood! I purchased dehydrated sea grapes on Amazon, and simply rehydrated them in cold water prior to adorning my onigiri with them for another oceanic-beachy feel.

From a cooking side of things, when working with clams, always be sure to rinse them and soak them in salted water. Shellfish of any kind will almost always contain sand or grit, so doing this helps remove any of that from the final product. I opted to first steam the clams to open then, then season them with a mixture of brown butter, garlic, red chili, soy sauce, cooking sake, and mirin to really add a lot of complimentary flavors. When I lived in Boston, eating steamed clams with drawn(clarified) butter was such a treat, so I wanted to pay homage to that by toasting off some garlic and chilies in brown butter, and combining that with ingredients you would find in a more traditional Japanese preparation of clams, being the soy, cooking sake, and mirin. Soy sauce-brown butter is one of my favorite things to cook with, so being able to use that to flavor the clams results in a very tasty clam mixture that will season our rice. With the rice, I am using a rice cooker. Yes, you can totally cook the rice on the stove, but when it comes to making onigiri, I prefer to use a rice cooker since it will also moderate the moisture content of the rice better. One trick I use to help with shaping the balls easier to just getting my hands mildly wet, so that you can help keep the rice from sticky to you. Fortunately, these onigiri are not stuffed, since the clams are mixed throughout the rice, so assembling them is not that challenging, and therefore less time before you get to stuff these buttery-garlicky clam-flavored rice balls in your face.

Makes 6 onigiri:
For the quahog clam mixture:
6 fresh Quahog clams
1 tbsp unsalted butter
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp red chili flakes
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp cooking sake
1 tsp mirin

Rinse the clams first with water, then refrigerate them for at least 1 hour in heavily salted cold water. This will help remove any salt or grit from the clams themselves. In a nonstick pan, start by cooking the clams with 1 cup water, covered, on medium heat until the water begins to boil and the clams begin to open. Remove the clams as they open and chop up the meat. Rinse the shells and reserve them for plating. In another nonstick pan, heat up the butter until it begins to brown, then add to that the garlic and chili, stirring those together on medium-low heat until the garlic begins to smell toasty. Then to that, add the clam water, soy sauce, cooking sake, and mirin, and reduce into a thick syrup. Take the pan off heat and to that, fold in the clams to finish.

For the rice:
3/4 cups short grain sushi rice
1 cup water, plus more for rinsing the rice

In a strainer, wash your rice under running water until the water is completely clear. Place the rice into a pot with the measured water and cook in a rice cooker, following its instructions.

For assembly:
Sea grapes

Fold the clam mixture through the cooked rice and divide the rice itself into 6 equal portions. Wet your hands lightly and press them into little triangles before nestling them between two Quahog clam shells. Garnish with sea grapes(or any kind of edible seaweed) to finish!