Onigiri with grilled pepper and negi onion, shichimi and nori

Form each ball by hand, cupping the hands together, one at a time however large the batch.

Measure the rice accurately with the rice cup.

Add just enough water to reach a wet-sand consistency and wash the rice for one full minute, pulling it down off the sides with the fingers. Be gentle: broken grains release starch and give a gluey texture.

Rinse six times, filling and dumping, until the rice runs clear. The milling powder on white rice is pure starch. The rinse water can go on the garden.

Drain off all the water completely so the ratio is right.

Refill the same measure with water and add it to the rice -- rice to water is one to one.

Cook 12 minutes on a medium-low flame under the drop lid and the lid, shut the heat off and rest 20 minutes. A rice cooker does the same automatically.

Oil the negi onion lightly and the outside of the peppers, and grill both until well charred. Do not season at this point.

Move the hot vegetables into a bowl, cover with a plate and let them steam about five minutes so heat penetrates from the inside and the skins loosen.

Peel the skins off without washing them -- washing takes the char flavour away. Leave a little charred skin in; it is not tough. Remove the pepper tops and seeds and the onion ends.

Dice and roughly mince the peppers and the onion, keeping some texture so they can still be found in the mixture.

Break the cooked rice up with the paddle and add the vegetable mixture a little at a time to get the ratio right, aiming for a confetti look -- not so sparse there is no flavour, not so saturated it will not hold.

Season with salt, the 7-spice powder and powdered nori. Add no wet ingredients such as soy sauce: too wet and it will not hold together.

Fold and turn the mixture over on itself vigorously but gently, going underneath, breaking up any clumps without mashing, cutting or smearing, until it is even in flavour and texture and each grain stands on its own.

Check the seasoning and leave it slightly under, since salt goes on again at shaping.

Wrap a strip of nori with the dull side inward, leaving part of the rice showing as a handle, as close to serving as possible -- wrapped ahead the nori hydrates and goes soft and sticky. At the inn the nori is served on the side.

Soak a bamboo husk in a little water to make it pliable, set the rice on it, fold it over, trim, and tuck the corner in.

Tuck seasonal flowers into the wrapper.