recipe: vegetarian sushi (this time with recipe!)

Kyle had a craving for sushi so we're making it again, just one week after the first time. And it was just as good this time around! I'm actually writing out the full recipe this time, mostly because we finished our package of nori that has the instructions... and I want a permanent record ;)

These instructions are based on what we made tonight.

Vegetarian Sushi
Ease: 4 not very easy (well, it's a bit complicated at first but it gets easy with practice!)
Time: 4 somewhat time consuming (rice preparation, filling preparation, and rolling all take a while)
Ingredients: can be tricky to obtain
Source: general instructions were on the back of our nori package, Yaki Sushi Nori, which be bought from the International Food Market on Wyandotte. Our ideas for the fillings came from previous experience with sushi restaurants.

Ingredients:

• 1/3 a block of tofu
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1.5 tsp hoisin sauce
• 1 tsp tempura sauce
• 1/2 tsp hot chili oil
• enough water to cover tofu
• 2 cups sushi rice (we bought ours at International Food Market)
• 2 cups water
• 1 Tbsp cooking sherry (our instructions call for Mirin, Japanese Sweet Rice Wine)
• 1 pc Kombu (dried kelp - we omitted this because we didn't know what it was)
• 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
• 2.5 Tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• nori
• 1 avocado
• ~ 1/3 - 1/2 of a cucumber
• 1 carrot
• Special Equipment: sushi rolling mat

Directions:

1. Cut and marinate tofu: Mix together the soy sauce, hoisin sauce, tempura sauce, and chili oil (or whatever sauces you'd prefer to use for your marinade). Cut the tofu into long strips about 1/3" x 1/3" x the longest dimension you can get. Add the tofu to the marinade and then add enough water to bring the marinade up and cover the tofu. Set aside.



2. Cook rice: Rinse rice in cold water several times until water runs clear. Add the measured water, the sherry, and the Kombu (if you're using it) to the rice and let sit for 30 minutes. If you're using Kombu, remove the Kombu before cooking the rice. Next, cook the rice until done (we used an electric rice cooker so just pressed "on" and it was done when it popped up). Once finished, remove from heat and let sit 10 minutes. Then fluff with wooden spoon.
3. Prepare sushi vinegar: While rice is cooking, mix together the rice wine vinegar, the sugar, and the salt. Warm in the microwave for 20 seconds to help dissolve everything.
4. Prepare fillings: While rice is cooking, prepare the fillings (except the avocado - leave that until last) Tofu: Sauté the tofu in a bit of oil and about half the sauce. Turn down the heat and let the rest of the sauce boil off. Carrot: Using a potato peeler, create long strips of carrot. Avocado and cucumber: Peel & remove seeds from cucumber, then cut into long matchstick-like strips. Cut the avocado the same way.
   
5. Prepare rice: After rice has been fluffed, spread it in a shallow pan and sprinkle the sushi vinegar over the rice. Toss with a wooden spoon so that the vinegar is evenly absorbed. Apparently using a fan at this point helps cool the rice to handling temperature and prevents sticky rice. Now you're ready to roll :)



6. Make maki sushi! Place one sheet of nori on a rolling mat. Moisten fingers and spread rice evenly over bottom 2/3 of nori sheet. I prefer small sushi pieces, so I usually only use about 1/2 cup of rice, which makes a layer about 1/3" thick (but with lots of holes that I can still see the nor through). Make a long indentation across the rice, about 1/3 of the way up the nori (so it splits the rice layer in half - top and bottom). Fill this indent with your ingredients (see below for flavour combos). Lift the mat over and tuck it around the fillings, squeezing a bit to compress the rice. Then continue rolling while releasing the mat as you go. (at this point, Kyle feels the need to give his whole roll a good squeeze. I found that mine worked well enough that I didn't need the extra squeeze. You'll find a technique that works for you).
   
7. Cool them: I put the "sushi logs" in the fridge for at least about 45 minutes, because I prefer them a bit cooled and it makes them easier to cut.
   
8. Cut them: Then, you cut your sushi into pieces of your desired size.
   
9. Serve with soy sauce, ginger, and wasabi. Mmm wasabi.
   

Serving size: This last batch made 10 thin logs of sushi, each log making up to 12 small pieces (like, really small pieces). For example, this photos below shows the sushi made from 4 logs.

recipe: vegetarian sushi

OK well I'm not doing a full sushi recipe... I just wanted an excuse to post photos of my very first homemade sushi!! It's very exciting.

I only started liking sushi recently, when I went to a restaurant in Québec called Metropolitain (or Eddie Sushi Bar). There, I tried the cucumber rolls and the avocado rolls and I fell in LOVE with the avocado ones. There was a brief period after that where I would crave the avocado rolls. Anyway, I've been back to that place again once or twice, and I've eaten at a couple of all-you-can-eat sushi restaurants. Some are more miss than hit, even with the avocado rolls :( Not to mention expensive.

I remember my friend and old roommate Erin making sushi at home once, and it didn't look TOO hard, so I wanted to give it a try. Kyle and I picked up the necessary materials on our last trip to International Food Market: a rolling mat, nori (the seaweed sheets), sushi rice, wasabi paste, and pickled ginger. Aaaand we've been putting it off since then. It's intimidating!

I put it on our "weekly meals" list for the week, and we tried it out today, since we knew we'd be home for a while. It took about 3 hours from start to finish, although a lot of that was just waiting. We followed the instructions for cooking the rice and rolling the sushi that were printed on the nori package. Here are the approximate list of steps:

1. Rinse rice and then soak for 30 minutes
2. Prepare fillings
3. Cook rice, then let sit for 10 minutes.
4. Mix rice with sushi vinegar (rice vinegar, sugar, and salt) and cool a bit while stirring.
5. Roll sushi!
6. Cool for about 1 hour (the cooling is optional but it made it really easy to slice nice pieces)
7. Slice sushi & serve!

Here were our fillings: everything was long thin matchstick type pieces except for the carrot, which was long strips that we obtained with a carrot peeler.

• Avocado (of course)
• Cucumber (one of Kyle's favourites)
• Vegetarian California roll (avocado, cucumber, and carrot)
• Stir-fried tempura tofu (recipe below)
  
• Deluxe: stir-fried tofu, avocado, cucumber, and carrot

I enjoyed all of them. They tasted as good as any restaurant, and Kyle even said the tofu tasted better than the tofu sushi we've gotten from restaurants. Yay us. I must say that the tofu was my least favourite, only because it had too much "savoury" taste and not enough "freshness" that would come from a veggie. I preferred the deluxe better because it had the extra veggie-ness.

This makes me want to have a sushi party :D

Recipe: Stir-fried tempura tofu (for sushi)
It's not much of "recipe" since I didn't measure amounts, but it was something like...

• tofu, cut into matchsticks
  
• soy sauce
• hoisin sauce
• tempura sauce
• hot chili oil
• water
  

Mix together and let sit for 1-2 hours.
Stir fry tofu in sesame, chili, & corn oil with a spoonful of the marinade sauce.
Let cool; set aside.