This past Christmas, my roommates and I participated in a Secret Santa gift exchange. I gave one of my roommates a sushi book by the name of vegetarian sushi by Brigid Treloar as a gift because he had wanted to learn how to make various types of sushi. This past weekend we decided to make the spinach pine nut sushi and try it out. I wanted to share some of the basics of sushi making with yall without posting the full recipe from her book. I can say that we've made various types of sushi from vegetarian sushi, and enjoyed everything made so far. I totally recommend it, as its a fairly straightforward and affordable cookbook.
Making Sushi Rice
Prep Time: 40 minutes
Estimated Cook Time: 20 minutes for 1 cup of sushi rice
Inactive Cook Time: 10 minutes
Making good sushi rice can be a fairly complex process, but with the proper knowledge can be relatively easy, albeit time consuming. On the bright side, a lot of the prep and cook time doesn't require your attention and you can do other things at the time.
Ingredients
1 cup sushi rice
1 1/8 cup water
3 tbsp rice or white vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
Steps
- Cover the sushi rice with water, and agitate. After agitation, drain the water, and repeat the process 3-4 times or until water becomes fairly clear. At first the water will become cloudy from the starches, but with each drain the water will become clearer. Rinsing out the rice in this manner removes the extra starch from the rice.
- Drain the rice, and pour cool water over the rice for about 5 minutes. Drain completely and let sit for about 20 minutes.
- Cook the rice in a rice cooker with the water.
- Spread the cooked rice over a wooden board or parchment paper. Drizzle with a mixture of vinegar and sugar, and gently keep the rice moving for about 10 minutes.
Filling Ingredients
-2 handfuls of baby arugula, blanched and diced
-1 tsp of sesame oil
-1 handful toasted pine nuts
-2 sheets nori, each cut in half
Filling steps
Mix the arugula and sesami oil.
Take a sheet of nori, and spread a thin layer of rice on the lower 2/3. Layer arugula and nuts over top.
