Maki-Sushi, Rolling Sushi
Sushi is a world-class famous Japanese cuisine. It is basically categorized into two types, Maki-sushi (means rolling) and Nigiri-sushi (topping on top of the molded rice). Many foreign countries mainly indicate Sushi as a rolling version, however, in Japan, Nigiri Sushi is more popular and identified as the original Sushi, not the one rolled with seaweed topping too much sauce and mayonnaise.
Eating raw fish may not be preferred in many countries considering the foodborne illnesses under limited access to fresh fish. Freshness is essential to serving sushi including sashimi, that consists of bite-sized pieces of raw fish and seafood served without rice.
These days, many foreign tourists visiting Japan are excited to try original sushi. There are thousands of Sushi Restaurants across Japan, but the northern part of Japan such as Hokkaido and Tohoku region is often quoted as the best seafood area. Kaiten Sushi (回転寿司) known as the Conveyor Belt Sushi restaurant, which rotating belt serves plates of sushi, is also popular for any generation including foreigners as it's reasonable and usually an English menu with pictures is also available. The prices are determined by the color of the plates, so you can easily check how much you eat!
2 types Sushi (left is Nigiri(pieces) and the right is Maki(rolled))
In response to the request and curiosity from my foreign friends that they are eager to try sushi, I wish I could cook it for them. However, as it's mentioned, accessing fresh seafood is not easy when I live outside of Japan, so I started cooking Vegetarian/Meat-based Rolling Sushi instead. This alternative idea made it easy and affordable to cook at home anytime anywhere, but still, I can share the taste of Japanese cuisine.
【Ingredients - for 2 rolls】
- - Rice: 1cup
- - Seaweed: 2 slices
- - Vinegar (rice vinegar if you have one): 3 tbsp
- - Sugar: 3 tbsp
- - Spinach: 200gCarrots: half size
- - Egg: 2
- - Canned tuna: 1
- - Mayonnaise: 2 tbsp
- 【Option】
- - Sliced beef: 200g
- - Cucumber: 1
- - Sesame oil: 2 tbsp
- - Salt: 2 tsp
- - Takuan (Radish sweet pickles in yellow color, also known as danmuji (단무지) in Korea): 100g
- Cook 1 cup of rice. Mix vinegar and sugar in a small bowl, and sprinkle it with the cooked rice. Gently mix them cooling them with a hand fan.
- After boiling spinach and carrots, julienne them into the same size, and season with salt, sesame oil, and soy sauce.
- Mix eggs with 2 tbsp of sugar and 1 tbsp of soy sauce, and make it roll in the flat pan. Ideally, the width of rolled eggs matches the width of seaweed.
- Open the canned tuna and mix it with mayonnaise.
<Korean style>
Instead of seasoning the rice with vinegar and sugar, use sesame oil and salt to season the rice. For the ingredients, sweet-salty beef should be the best match.
Cook beef until some parts get color and season it with sugar, soy sauce, and mirin or sake if you have. Cook them until the beef absorbs the sauce.
- Time to roll them all! Put one piece of seaweed on the plastic wrap, and spread the seasoned rice equally to cover the seaweed. Leave the edge for 1cm without rice so that the stitched part looks perfectly good when it's rolled.
- Make a space for 2-3 cm from the edge, and place ingredients accordingly, spinach, carrots, eggs, and seasoned tuna. If you like, you can put a seasoned beef.
- Holding the plastic wrap and the top of seaweed using your fingers, roll it up with all ingredients at all once and press the first roll steadily. Roll it all and leave it for 10 minutes with cover together.
- Slice 3-4 cm each and serve it on the plate. Meshiagare!
Popular dish in the home party, easy to grab, great combination with Japanese Sake and beer.
