Totoro Inari

Culinary Cam
13 hours ago
2 min read

I missed a bunch of weeks of the 2026 Alphabet Challenge that was started by Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm. As in years past, we post every two weeks with a recipe inspired by a certain letter. It's like Sesame Street for grown ups! And I love it though I have been remiss at participating regularly this year. So, I am playing catch-up. Here I am at letter 'i'...

I is for...

Jolene’s Recipe Journal: Homemade Italian Dressing
Sneha’s Recipe: Indo Chinese Idli Fry - Leftover Idlis
Mayuri’s Jikoni: Iru Puli Kuzhambu
Food Lust People Love: Italian Sausage Stuffed Mini Peppers
Karen’s Kitchen Stories: Mini Ice Cream Cakes
A Day in the Life on the Farm: Nutella Ice Cream
A Messy Kitchen: Smaller Chocolate Eclair Cake (from scratch)
Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice: Sun Dried Tomato Italian Dipping Oil for Bread

Totoro Inari

I decided to turn one of our favorite foods - inari -into a kawaii inari...in the shape of Totoro! No real recipe here...just the seasoned rice with canned tofu skins. Make into a (cute) kawaii little critter! You can read another post I did about Inarizushi.

But this recipe is really all about the seasoned rice which many, many uses; I usually use it as a base for sushi or for a poke bowl.

Ingredients

serves 8

4 cups short grain rice (sushi rice)
4 cups water plus more for soaking
1/3 cup seasoned rice wine vinegar or other white vinegar
5 Tablespoons organic granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon salt
Also needed: paper fans, wooden spoons, and a non-aluminum pan

Procedure

Wash rice and soak in water 2 hours or longer. Once you're ready to cook, drain the rice and set aside.

Put water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add drained rice. Mix well, cover, and bring to a boil again Turn heat very low and steam 20 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes after turning off heat. Turn the rice into a large, wide bowl or pan.

Heat vinegar, sugar, and salt in a small saucepan until the salt and sugar are dissolved. Cool and fold into hot rice being careful not to mash the rice grains. Fan the rice and cool completely. The rice should be coated with the vinegar and glossy.