I’ve had this amazing bunny rice mould set on my wishlist for a while so I was really pleased to get one from Blippo to review. I make Japanese curry quite often and it could definitely be improved with bunny shaped rice!
The set costs just under £10 and you get three different rice moulds (bunny, dolphin and sunflower), plus cutters. The instructions are all in Japanese but it seemed pretty obvious what to do.
(photo – Serious Eats)
Japanese curry is really easy to make, as you just need curry roux that comes in blocks. I buy S&B Golden Curry from my local Waitrose. If you have an Asian market nearby, you should find curry roux there, or you can order online from sites like JapanCentre. All the brands are pretty similar in taste so get whatever’s available. Serious Eats have a good guide to the different brands, plus the basic recipe that is similar to what I make, except mine has different vegetables – roast sweet potato, yellow (bell) pepper and peas. I just use whatever I have.
While the curry and rice were cooking I used the cutter to make shapes out of carrot! I think this would be easier with cooked carrot, or else cut your slices thinner than I did. The carrot and fish shapes were easy to cut, but the bigger ones needed a lot more pressure. The face shape should be cut from nori seaweed for the bunny rice but I just used carrot for that too. I then boiled all the carrot shapes until cooked. There is a lot of wastage using these cutters, but you can chop up the leftovers and either put them in your curry or freeze them for next time you make soup. If you don’t like carrots you could use these cutters with any thinly sliced vegetable.
Since I make Japanese rice fairly often, I have a rice cooker. I really recommend getting one if you’ll use it a lot as it makes things so much easier – it cooks the rice perfectly and will keep it warm until you’re ready to eat. If you don’t have one, follow the instructions on the packet very carefully and keep an eye on it. You can buy Japanese rice (or sushi rice) from supermarkets now, or online too. Other types of rice won’t be as sticky to hold the shape, but it will probably be fine and will widen your choice of recipes. Once the rice is cooked, just scoop it into the mould, pressing it into all the corners. The bunny came out really easily and looks great!
The hardest part is carefully placing the curry around your rice and making sure you get sauce into all the corners – just take your time. I placed the carrot shapes on top for decoration and you have to agree it looks adorable! It tasted pretty great too. The bunny mould used up a bit more rice than I would normally serve so I didn’t have enough left over to try a different mould. The dolphin works in the same way, while with the sunflower you put the curry in the centre. I’lm going to try that one next.
Overall, I really recommend this kit. It’s great value, especially with the free shipping, since you get all three moulds and it barely takes any extra time. There are also lots of different things you can try, like colouring the rice with saffron or even using the moulds for jelly. I’m sure I will keep using it, especially if I have guests. Even if this all seems too complicated for you, you could just buy some cute vegetable cutters to decorate your meals.
(Products were provided for review by Blippo, but this is my honest review and the photos are my own)
Leave a Reply