Dorayaki are a delicious Japanese treat, but unfortunately much more expensive and harder to find over here in the UK – so I decided to try making my own! Usually red bean paste would be used as the filling, but I decided to go for something a little different and made a green tea crème patissière to sandwich the two pancakes together – mostly down to the fact that I’d bought matcha powder recently and wanted an excuse to try it out!
While I was in Japan a few years ago, I visited a fast-food chain called “Mos Burger” – and fell in love with their amazing vegetarian “kinpira” burger. Kinpira is traditionally made with carrot and burdock root, but as I couldn’t find any burdock root I’ve recreated this meal using carrot and red and yellow peppers. You could also use parsnips instead of the peppers for a different taste; just add them slightly earlier than you would for the peppers.
For Halloween, I decided to adapt my onigiri recipe to make cute pumpkin versions!
Not only is it easy to make, it’s also very versatile, so you can adapt it to your own tastes.
You can flavour them however you like – plain, with seasoning, or filled with tuna or vegetables.
I hope this inspires you to make cute onigiri too!
Little Panda Chef 