Edible origami! Japanese cooks use paper-folding technique to make beautiful, delicious snacks

Japan’s traditional art of paper-folding turns out to be useful in the kitchen too.

What makes origami so fascinating is the way in which a skilled practitioner can take something so simple, a single piece of paper, and create beautiful pieces of art from it. But even though origami literally means “folded paper,” the techniques of the Japanese handicraft can be applied to other mediums as well.

Japanese Twitter user @key_daisuki and his dad both enjoy cooking, and when the son came back home for a visit the father decided to make shumai (Chinese-style dumplings) for dinner. Being a talented chef, @key_daisuki’s dad didn’t just heat up some frozen shumai from the supermarket either. Instead, he made his own, preparing their meaty filling and wrapping each by hand in wonton skin.

But even when @key_daisuki’s dad ran out of filling, he still had skins left over, so he combined his origami skills with his cooking talents and whipped up a batch of beautiful, and edible, origami cranes.

僕は料理が趣味なのですが家に帰ったら父親が、シュウマイの皮が余ったからと鶴を折ってました。完全敗北 https://t.co/dru2f51Kud
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きーくん（21） (@key_daisuki) September 02, 2017

It’s actually a pretty ingenious idea. After all, a sheet of wonton skin isn’t all that different from a sheet of paper. Once he’d folded his cranes, @key_daisuki’s fried them to a crisp, salted them lightly, and served them as snacks that his son deemed “delicious.”

The crane may be the most iconic origami design, but it’s far from the only one. Inspired by his dad’s ingenuity, @key_daisuki later tried his hand at edible origami too, crafting samurai helmets and boxes in addition to the birds.

すぐ調子に乗って自分も作って見ましたが父親の方がうまかったです… 手裏剣は崩壊しました https://t.co/jzXdXsbtnQ
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きーくん（21） (@key_daisuki) September 03, 2017

While origami cranes are basically paper-thin throughout, the helmets and boxes have empty space at their centers. So now it was @key_daisuki’s turn to serve as inspiration for someone else, namely Twitter user @grandmariu, who filled his wonton skin helmets with ingredients including edamame soy beans, ham, cheese, imitation crab, onion, white sauce, and other vegetables to make eye-catching and mouth-watering snacks.