Echigo Star of Niigata Rice Crackers Ebi

Star of Niigata Ebi is built to taste like kakiage, and Echigo Seika says so outright.

Kakiage is the fritter end of tempura — small shrimp and sliced onion bound in a loose batter and deep-fried into a rough disc, served over rice or soba, and one of the most ordinary pleasures of Japanese home and shop cooking.

The combination that defines it is shrimp and onion together, and that is exactly what goes onto this cracker: shrimp powder, seafood extract, onion powder and garlic, with the onion’s sweetness carrying the shrimp.

That is a more complex seasoning than the sweet-soy version of the same cracker, and it needs a base that can hold it.

The rice is 100% Niigata-grown, from the prefecture Echigo Seika calls home and Japan regards as its foremost rice country, and the texture is sakutto — a light, clean snap rather than the hard bite of a traditional senbei.

The star shape is the brand’s signature and a genuine rarity in the Japanese rice-cracker aisle, where almost everything is a brown disc or a brown square.

Echigo Seika has worked in Niigata since 1947, across mochi, packaged rice and rice confectionery, and this belongs to the company’s atarashii okome no okashi line — new rice sweets, where familiar ingredients go into formats that did not previously exist.

The 72 g bag holds individually wrapped portions of about 18 g. Beer is the natural partner, which is also true of actual kakiage.

About this item
Item Name : Star of Niigata Ebi
Brand : Echigo Seika
Item Form : Rice Cracker
Allergens: Shrimp, wheat, soybean
Number of Items : 72g, 4 Small Packs (Pack of 1)