Jennifer Cornbleet: So now we are ready to roll. Making vegetarian sushi starts off with the bamboo sushi mat. You can get these at most Asian markets and even at a lot of health food stores and this is going to help make a tight roll. So I’ll put down the mat, then I’m going to put a sheet of nori seaweed on top. This is nori seaweed it is a kind sea vegetable very rich in minerals and this is raw nori, you can purchase it either raw or toasted, and you can tell the difference by the colour. Raw nori is black, where as toasted nori is bright green.
So I’m going to lay that sea nori down on my mat and now I’m going to begin layering ingredients. The first thing I’m going to put down is a little bit of that mellow white miso, its is salty seasoning its made from fermented soybeans and its going to help my other ingredients stick to the roll and its also going to add a nice salty flavor.
So go ahead and spread some of the miso, you don’t need a lot because it is quite salty, so I’m just using the back of a teaspoon. And don’t try this out crazy, trying to get it all exact in everything, because you don’t want to push so hard as to tare the nori, you just want to spread a little bit on there. And now I can start layering my other ingredients, the order doesn’t really matter you can just do you like, I think I’ll begin with some carrot ribbons. And it’s important to layer everything into nice neat rectangles so that you have a neat type roll.
Make sure you go all the way to edge of the nori, so that we need do roll it, you have a little bit of carrot peaking out that’s going to looks nice. I’m however leaving about a half inch margin in front of me, I’m not going all the way to front edge because I need something to hold on to I end up rolling
If you are new to this, I recommend starting out with a little bit of a smaller roll don’t layer on too many ingredients and that’s going to make it easier.
Now I’ll put down some of the cucumber slices, again going all the way out to the edge, and I’ll down some of my avocado now, avocado is stickier, so I would like to have it in the middle of my other vegetables, is going to kind a how stick things together, hold it all together. Three slices is enough of one roll, and now some red bell pepper.
And then finally, I’ll put some not tuna pate on there, remember or not tuna this is going to be rolled on tray using not tuna. I could stop here and make already roll but I’m going make this roll extra rich and special was some of the pate. It’s easiest to shape this pate on top of your rectangle of ingredients with your fingers. I was so happy to discover, that I could make vegetarian sushi with out the rice, because I try to cut down on the amount of to fine carbohydrates I eat. And you really don’t miss the rice in this dish.
Okay. So everything is nice, neat and stacked and we are ready to roll. I‘m going to wash my hands you want to start the rolling process with clean hands. To roll the sushi grip the nori and the mat with your thumb and forefinger that’s were having that margin comes in. Now the idea is I want to get these pieces of nori over to the other side as quickly and tightly as possible. So I’m going to hold the other ingredients back with my other fingers while I do that.
So here we go going forward, forward, forward and then I pull back this is the key step as soon as I get that top of the nori on the other side pull back firmly. Now I can lift up the bamboo sushi mat, because I don’t want to roll that into the roll, and I’m just going to walk it forward I have already completed most of the roll with that first pulling back, this is just finishing it off. So I’m gently walking it forward and then when I get the hand I going to dip my finger and just a little of water and run along the edge of the nori to seal that roll.
Then I can complete the roll and give it a little squeeze here if you want just to tight it up, unveil it. Now I can cut it, you can use a chef’s knife that’s just a 7 to 10 inch knife to cut your roll, but I like to use a serrated knife because nori is a little bit tough and a sawing motion really helps go through it. So I’ll cut roll in half and then I’m going to cut each of these pieces into thirds, that’s a nice pipe size. So between stacking, stuffing and rolling you have got you’re on trays covered and this is a delicious gourmet roll called California rolls.
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