Vegetable Sushi

By tulawdog

Ingredients

• FOR THE BROWN RICE:
• Ingredients
• sushi nori sheets
• 1 cup brown rice
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon brown rice vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• FOR THE TOPPINGS AND FILLINGS:
• asparagus spears, roasted
• avocado, peeled and sliced
• beets, roasted
• cucumber, sliced lengthwise into strips about 1/4-insh around
• daikon, pickled (the Korean version of this is called dahn moo-jee)
• kale, sliced into very fine shreds
• roasted red pepper
• roasted sweet potato
• shiitake mushrooms
• tomato, sliced into super thin wedges
• for garnish: sesame seeds, lemon and/or lime zest, grated fresh ginger, sliced scallions, sliced jalapeño
• for serving: soy sauce, pickled ginger, flaky sea salt

Preparation

Step 1

Directions
COOK THE RICE
Rinse brown rice until water runs clear, then cook in rice cooker. When done, keep warm while preparing the fillings.

Put cooked brown rice in large bowl. Sprinkle with brown rice vinegar and salt (usually there is sugar in the rice seasoning, but I left it out just because…I felt like it). Gently mix the rice with a wide, flat spoon to mix and cool. when the rice is cool enough to the touch for you to handle, you’re ready to roll! (*groan*)Place bamboo sushi mat on cutting board. Place 1 sheet nori on mat. The nori is a rectangle, so make sure the sheet is lined up wide, rather than tall.

MAKE SUSHI ROLLS: ASPARAGUS + KALE ROLL, CUCUMBER ROLL
Spoon about ½ cup brown rice onto nori, gently spreading it out into a thin layer all the way to the edges except the far end. Leave about 2 inches of nori “open” on the far side.

For Asparagus + Kale Roll: Place about a half handful of shredded kale across the rice horizontally in an even strip. Lay stalks of asparagus down in a single line (you may use 1 stalk, or 1 plus a cut piece of a second stalk).

Using the mat to hold things together, roll the nori over the asparagus and kale into a sushi roll. You might not get it right the first time. Nor the second time. That’s okay. Just eat those yourself before anyone sees those hot, lopsided messes.

Place perfect sushi rolls seam side down on cutting board and cut into pieces. Use a very sharp, clean knife. Wipe the blade with a wet paper towel after every cut.

For Cucumber Roll, do the same thing, using pieces of cucumber.

MAKE SUSHI
Grab a small handful of rice (about 1½ tablespoons) and form into an oval with your hands. This will take time as the rice, weirdly, falls apart and is sticky at the same time. You will need to press together pretty firmly; don’t worry if you feel like you are smashing the rice too much. You probably are, but that’s okay.

Place the formed rice on the serving plate. It is easier to make all the rice balls at once and then top them later, so make all the rice balls first.

Top the rice balls with different vegetables, and garnish according to your taste. This is what we did:

roasted red pepper with roasted sesame seeds
roasted sweet potatoes with fresh grated ginger (very strong. you have to really like ginger to do this)
avocado with jalapeno, lime zest, scallions
roasted beet with lemon zest
For some of the vegetables, you may want to “strap” them down with a thin strip of nori wrapped around the vegetable and rice together. We did this for the fresh tomato and one version of shiitake mushroom (4-5 thin slices of shiitake, as opposed to the entire shiitake cap).

The traditional accompaniments to sushi are soy sauce, wasabi, and pickled ginger. Soy sauce was a little strong for some of the vegetables, so we opted instead for a few flakes of sea salt.