Vegetarian Sushi

I am in love with making Sushi!

I'm obsessed with it. I've been scouring the internet for tips and tricks. I stopped at the Asian Food Market and grabbed a sushi rolling mat to increase productivity - which set me back a cool 99 cents! I can now chuck my sacraficed bamboo placemat which is pretty much ruined anyway, since I was pushing it past it's regular job of sitting pretty on my table.

It's funny, because although I wince at the thought of eating fish, no matter how I try to tell myself how good it should be - raw fish (particularly red snapper and tuna) is quite tasty. There's no "fishiness" - or there shouldn't be if it's fresh - and I find the texture to be quite similar to the rice in the sushi roll. Plus, if eaten with a dab of wasabi, dipped in soy sauce and chased with a piece of pickled ginger you can barely taste anything else!

I'm not brave enough to try my hand at working with the raw sea animals - but I have been playing around with the colors of the rainbow via the veggie briggade. Peppers in every single hew, carrots, sprouts, avocado, cucumbers, pickles, zuchinni and squash.

VEGETARIAN BROWN RICE SUSHI

2 sheets of Nori (found in Asian Food Markets)
1 carrot, peeled and cut into long, thin strips
1/2 cucumber, seeded and cut into long, thin strips (Do not peel!) 1/2 red bell pepper, cut into long, thin strips
1/2 a ripe avocado, removed from outer skin and cut into strips
1/4 cup mung bean sprouts
wasabi paste
pickled ginger

For Rice:
2 1/4 cups of water
1 cup brown rice
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar

Bring water to a boil in a saucepan. Add rice and soy sauce. Cover with a lid and let rice steam for 40-45 minutes or until done. Remove from heat and transfer to a bowl with a large surface area for cooling. Sprinkle with rice wine vinegar and gentle stir rice to coat. Let stand 20 minutes.

Meanwhile prepare all vegetables.

Lay out your sushi rolling mat onto a clean cutting board or other flat surface, so the slats are perpendicular to your body. Lay a piece of nori on the mat, shiny side down. Using damp fingers, spread a layer of rice over nori, covering the nori almost entirely - leaving a 1 inch strip at the top of the nori, furthest from you. (Doing this will help to seal the roll.)

Spread a very thin bead of wasabi paste in a single line along the edge nearest to you. Be careful with the wasabi, because if you use too much, you will blow yourself and your dinner mates out of the water! Arrange vegetables strips. Using your thumbs, gently begin to roll up the mat, squeezing gently to adhere the nori to itself. Chill roll for 10 minutes or so, then cut into pieces with a very sharp knife.

I served my sushi alongside some pork and vegetable pot stickers.

Now, some may think that brown rice was a strange choice...but I wanted to up the nutrician level and brown rice certainly did the trick. However, if I didn't tell you, you'd probably never know...it still had the same consistancy as traditional sushi (or sticky) rice, but with a slight nutty flavor.

I'm now thinking of ways to create a little sushi dessert roll. (Hummmm.....YUM!)