LapLap

I made takikomi gohan early this morning as part of my husband's lunch using reconstituted shiitake mushrooms and the soaking "broth", shredded carrots and shredded jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes) as well as the rice and some seasonings.

This thread encouraged me to make an aberration of my own.

I took portions of the remaining hot rice and with wet hands sprinkled with sea salt and formed the takikomi gohan into triangular patties. These I placed in a hot pan inside a preheated Philips Airfryer at the highest setting to grill them. After 8 minutes once the sides looked golden I brushed some soy sauce on to the top, gave it another 30 seconds at full blast, reduced the temperature and added sliced cheddar as a topping and let the cheese melt.

Result was a glorious example of comfort food. If I had to give them a name it would be "takikomi cheese yaki onigiri", but does this classify as a kind of onigiri, or is it a sōsaku onigiri (or sōsaku yakionigiri) or something else entirely?
Usually I would have green tea with onigiri but this cheesy rice worked well with English style black tea clouded with milk.

Once onigiri (rice balls) finally catch on with folks outside of Japan in the way that the sushi word has it will be interesting to see what other atrocities come out of it.

Edit to add: Seems "cheese yaki onigiri" is a well known treat - lots of mouth watering examples when チーズ焼きおにぎり is run through google images as a search term.