Salmon Rice Balls With Sriracha Mayo (2024)

Slightly spicy seafood rice balls from Zelda Breath of the Wild! My reflection on making these with salmon and Sriracha mayo. Also some more of my thoughts regarding the Tears of the Kingdom gameplay demo!

Skip To: How I Made Seafood Rice Balls

Skip To: Tears of the Kingdom Chat and Fan Art

This cooking reflection is part of a four-part series on Breath of the Wild’s rice balls, as well as my thoughts on the new gameplay demo of Tears of the Kingdom that came out on March 28th – including my new fan art!

Scroll to the bottom to read my thoughts about Tears of the Kingdom and see another illustration I did inspired by the new game!

It’s been a hot minute since I posted anything, and by that I mean about 3 weeks. I switched my website to a new platform, for one. Let me tell you, that was work. I’m going to be cleaning up loose ends for a while. But, more importantly, I really needed some time to digest this latest and final trailer for Tears of the Kingdom, released on April 13th 2023. More on that at the bottom of the post, now onto the rice balls!

Seafood Rice Balls in Zelda Breath of the Wild: any seafood + Hylian rice

Seafood rice balls can be made in a cooking pot by combining any seafood with Hylian rice. I recommend using a hearty salmon! The porgys and crabs render a decent number of hearts.

You can also make elemental seafood rice balls by adding specific seafood or ingredients with elemental behaviours – added benefits for stamina, endurance, speed, attack, defense, or stealth, or protection from cold, heat, or electricity.

Also, try using more than one unit of the same seafood to increase the number of hearts in the dish.

Here are some example seafood and Hyrule ingredients for each element:

• Stamina – staminoka bass, bright-eyed crab
• Endurance – add an endura carrot or endura shroom (plus seafood + rice)
• Speed – add a lotus seed, swift carrot, swift violet, or rushroom ( plus seafood + rice)
• Attack – mighty porgy, mighty carp, razorclaw crab
• Defense – armored porgy, armored carp, ironshell crab
• Stealth – stealthfin trout, sneaky river snail
• Chilling – chillfin trout
• Heating – sizzlefin trout
• Electric – voltfin trout

Best Tip: You can significantly increase the heart count of the seafood rice balls by adding a hearty seafood ingredient. Other hearty ingredients can then be to a low level seafood and rice too, like: durian + Hyrule bass + Hylian rice.

Here are the hearty seafoods, specifically:

• hearty salmon
• hearty bass
• hearty blueshell snail

Scroll to the bottom of the post for more of my thoughts on Tears of the Kingdom. INCLUDES SPOILERS!

How I Made Seafood Rice Balls

Note: This is NOT an authentic Japanese onigiri / rice ball recipe. Please look elsewhere for authentic Japanese onigiri recipes, there are some amazing recipes to choose from with a quick Google search!

These four rice ball posts are solely regarding my own experience cooking rice ball recipes inspired by the Zelda Breath of the Wild video game. As such, I’m not including recipe cards with any of the rice balls from Zelda that I will be covering in this four-part series. These are my own fun cooking reflections.

With these ingredients, I made 6 seafood rice balls.

The ingredients I chose to use included:

• 3 cups short grain sushi rice
• 3 cups water
• small filet of salmon
• 2 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 tsp Sriracha
• 1 sheet of nori
• water with a dash of salt

For cooking tools and preparation, I used:

• medium pot with a tight-fitting lid
• wood spatula for handling the rice
• cutting board
• measuring spoons
• cooking spatula for fish
• medium frying pan
• small dishes

How I made these seafood rice balls:

First, I cooked the rice. I washed the rice with cold water, until the water ran clear. Then I soaked the rice in water for 40 minutes, then washed it again. I added equal parts rice and water to a pot and covered it with a tight-fitting lid. I brought the water to a boil over high heat, then reduced the heat to low and cooked the rice for 20 minutes. I then removed the rice from the heat and let it sit covered for 10 minutes (still covered with the lid).

Next I cooked the salmon over medium heat in a little oil, for about 4 minutes on each side. Once it cooled, I flaked the salmon, checking it for bones.

I prepared some Sriracha mayonnaise by mixing Sriracha and mayonnaise together in a bowl, then setting it aside.

Once the rice had cooled enough to touch, I began to assemble the rice balls. I filled a small dish with a cup of room temperature water and a pinch of salt to dip my hands into as needed, so they wouldn’t get sticky. I wetted my hands in the salt water, then took about 3/4 of a cup of rice into one cupped hand.

I made an indent in the middle of the rice in my hand. I added about 1 tbsp of flaked salmon and a dab of Sriracha mayonnaise into the indent in the rice, then folded up the edges of the rice to cover the filling.

Next I formed the rice into a triangular prism shape by making a 45 degree L shape with my right hand and cupping the rice ball into my hand repeatedly.

To finish, I cut some strips of nori and wrapped one around the bottom of each rice ball. I also topped each rice ball with a bit of leftover salmon.

That’s it! These were so delicious, I would definitely make them again. Rice balls always make such amazing snacks, are great for eating on the go, and are super filling.

Now, onto the Tears of the Kingdom…

On Tears of the Kingdom (SPOILERS!)

Spoilers below, so read at your own peril. This also may contain spoilers and theories about Totk based on the final game trailer from April 13th.

First, my latest fan art!

I sincerely think that the sky islands are now the starting point for Tears of the Kingdom. The last trailer solidified that because Zelda is standing on the same platform at the end of the trailer that will later be a part of the sky islands. I say later, since I am absolutely certain that time travel will be a part of this game.

I think Link has to find Zelda, and that Zelda is lost in time, specifically Zelda is lost in the past. In face, the platform she is standing on at the end of the final trailer might be her tomb in Link’s time – who knows… So, I think Link has to collect these “tears” in order to perhaps travel further back in time to find Zelda.

So, how did Zelda end up lost in time? I wonder if maybe the Zonai saved her, using the recall ability. One of the trailers for Tears of the Kingdom shows a faint yellow glow around Zelda as she falls away from Link, and so I think this is a sign of the recall ability, and someone is using is to save Zelda from falling to her death, but to save her she must be pulled out of that time, and is therefore lost. We have to collect the “tears” of Hyrule Kingdom to go far enough back through time to find Zelda.

Now that I think of it, this sounds like the plot line of a few Star Trek episodes I’ve seen before. I’m not mad about it at all either, I love time travel stuff!

Demise is probably also going to be in this game, although in what form exactly I’m not sure. But this evil antagonist, previously from Skyward Sword, will likely be a major part of the game. I’m positive this is the case, mainly because Demise was sealed in the Master Sword, and now the sword appears to be broken. It would make sense.

Another reason I think that Link will be using the accumulated tears to go back in time to find Zelda – there a shot of Link standing in Hyrule castle, and that castle is looking squeaky clean. In the present of Breath of the Wild, it is a wreck, so in the Totk trailer, that shot of the castle must be in the past. If this is true, I think it’s more likely to be a cut scene, perhaps not actual gameplay, or the gameplay may be limited. Of course, I could be totally wrong about this!

Also that big storm cloud over Hebra, that’s got to be like the Thunderhead from Skyward Sword, right? And that giant creepy monster that came out of the storm cloud towards Link and Tulin in the trailer?! That was so cool…. and a bit scary. At first I thought maybe it was the Great Hebra Skeleton brought back to life – one of the leviathans. BUT, it looked like it had too many eyes and legs in the trailers for it to be a great flying whale. It looks more like a spider. Legend of Zelda games are not strangers to spiders, its actually a bit weird that Breath of the Wild didn’t really have one. This monster in the storm cloud in Tears of the Kingdom reminds a little too much of Armogohma from Twilight Princess. And where does Armogohma exist in Twilight Princess? The Temple of Time… So…. what is this monster in Tears of the Kingdom …is a TIME TRAVELING SPIDER?

Okay, more on this next time. Thanks for reading! Only just over two weeks until the release of Tears of the Kingdom!