Vegetarian Sushi
Yesterday (Saturday, Sept 19, 2009) evening I was working and to take time off thought of making dinner and started looking around what is available and what I can make. I wanted to have something different than usual and was craving for Sushi for long time… My wife and mom are vegetarian. My wife didn’t have positive experience with Japanese cuisine (being a vegetarian, of course, due to limited to no options) and my mom never had Japanese cuisine. I told my wife I want to make vegetarian sushi and at first she was kinda not too happy but being such a kind and caring she told “Go, for it!”. Second hurdle was convincing my mom to have Sushi but she has been very supportive so it worked out pretty well. I was a bit nervous just because of Sea Weed smell (sea food scent, which is not suitable to many vegetarians) and taste might turn them off trying and enjoying the Sushi; but I wanted wanted to make them eat once and go from there. So, I started browsing for vegetarian Sushi recipe online. Food Network is one of the highly watched channel in my home so I went to food network and found couple of recipes. I found Ina Garten’s Vegetable Sushi recipe the easiest and fastest to make. I also went to YouTube and watched couple of videos. I found following videos to be helpful:
Sushi Tuna Roll:
(Or watch on YouTube: Sushi Tuna Roll)
Sushi California Roll:
(Or watch on YouTube: Sushi California Roll)
Vegetable Sushi Recipe - Health and Nutrition for Kids
(Or watch on YouTube: Vegetable Sushi Recipe- Health & Nutrition for kids)
I went to Asian (Korean - Japanese) grocery store near my place and got all the ingredients and required tools. I would highly suggest to get Sushi Rice to make sushi because of grain size and stickiness of the rice (It cost me about $6 for 5Lbs of rice). I would also encourage to invest in bamboo sheet (which cost me $0.89, woahaa!) to roll the sushi as shown in Tuna and California roll videos above.
It was fun making Sushi and everyone loved it. It tuned out surprisingly so awesome, off the hook!. It turned out so good than what I had expected. According to my parents I can open a street cart for vegetable sushi as my backup! and make some good money on side. (I am going to take as a positive comment!). Oh, yes and my wife helped me in making potato salad which turned out great too. I took some for my cousins and friends later for them to try and everyone loved it (thats what they told me! I think they were right too!)
Overall, my experience was great. It was fun making Sushi (which I love a lot) for my wife and parents and on top of it everyone loved it which, was icing on the cake for me. Very happy with the outcome! Hope you guys try it and like it. Please add your comments about what you think and if you have tried any other kinds of vegetarian / vegetable sushi please add the link for me and other readers.
Have a nice weekend.
Few other videos:
How to eat sushi using chopstick
Sushi - How to make a tiger roll
