Sushi Plates

I simply must share. I stumbled across this lunch earlier this week, by combining a few things I knew about my kids (they love pickled daikon sushi, they love korean salted seaweed, and playing with your food is awesome) and I came up with a lunch that was a huge hit.

 The plate is a hand-me-down from a neighbor, but she said it came from Pottery Barn. The kids loved all the little sections. Clockwise from the top, I have: soy sauce, oshinko (pickled daikon radish), salted seaweed papers, rice sprinkled with sugar. 

Both of the kids had thirds on their rice, and cleaned their plates. Success! I may have to remember this for lunches next year for school...

Mochi

It's another Vitamix recipe! I'm in the final days of pregnancy, and craving sweets. It's fierce, I tell you! Luckily for me, we try not to keep too much prepared food around the house. It's better for us, but stinks when I go out of town and come back to...nothing, until I cook it. It's much easier to convince myself to NOT make that batch of cookies, than to tell myself to leave them in the cupboard. (Will you look at those hands? I've had the hands of an old women since I was 10. No joke. Oddly enough, they haven't GROWN since I was 12, either!)

The craving became too fierce the other day, and I wondered if it would be possible to make my own rice flour at home and create a passable mochi. For those who didn't grow up in a dense and vibrant Asian community, mochi is a rather traditional kind of Asian sweet- sweet sticky rice, mixed with a little water and sugar and pounded into a gummy dough. The dough can be rolled into balls and coated with various powders, or wrapped around fillings. My mom's favorite is mochi dough wrapped around mango ice cream. It seems that each country treats their mochi a little differently.

I started by grinding 2 cups of regular sticky rice in the Vitamix. All the recipes call for "Mochiko Sweet Rice Flour" (or glutinous rice flour.) I think Mochiko is the brand...but I was willing to give my rice flour a shot! The vitamix isn't the machine for making powder-fine flour- it left little bits and bobs behind.

The first recipe I tried is here. It was kind of a disaster- way too sticky to handle, and the larger bits of rice flour sunk to the bottom making a kind of crust. The top was yummy and smooth, though. It might have worked better with a finer flour.

My second recipe can be found here. It used about half the amount of water, so the dough was fairly pasty before being put in the microwave, rather than a liquid. I think this recipe is the keeper! I've included it below, with my changes. Basically, I've doubled the recipe, increased the sugar a tad, and changed the handling instructions slightly.

Mochi

Ingredients:
14 Tablespoons Rice Flour (1 cup less 2 Tbsp)
3 Tbsp sugar
10 Tbsp boiling water

1. In a glass dish (I used a 4 cup pyrex cup), mix rice flour and sugar.
   
2. Heat 11 Tbsp water in a pyrex cup in the microwave, and add 10 Tbsp boiling water to flour-sugar mixture. Stir two minutes.
   
3. Cover with saran wrap and microwave 2-4 minutes. I cooked mine 3.
4. Pour a small amount of oil into a large Ziploc bag, and coat inside thoroughly. Scoop hot dough into bag and start kneading. You might need to cover the bag with a towel, this is hot! Use the heel of your hand to push the dough out, then grab a bag corner and shake back into a ball. Eventually, dough will form a solid (and cool) enough lump where you can just mash it in your hands like play clay. Knead for 7-10 minutes, until kind of springy and chewy.
   
5. Grab off teaspoon-sized chunks and roll into balls. You can put filling inside (red bean paste, guava jelly, etc. were all suggested), and you can roll these in powdered peanutes, more rice flour, toasted sesame flour, etc. I left mine plain.

Here is my dough ball. It's only out of respect for YOU that this wasn't consumed as-is! It's much prettier rolled into balls, don't you think?

Two Kinds of Sushi from the Pantry

My family knows I am a pantry cook. You can send anything home with me- it will get made into a meal. I'm like the wicked stepsister from Cinderella with the shoe- "I'll MAKE it fit!"

So, in light of this I want to share my two "pantry sushi" recipes. We've made them a few times, and my husband and 3-year-old daughter ate every last piece, every time. (And no- these are hardly "authentic" Japanese food. But they're yummy, and reasonably healthy.)

Sushi Rice

Cook 3 scoops of rice. When finished, mix with: 1/4 cup rice vinegar, 1/4 cup sugar, pinch of salt boiled together in the microwave. Spread into a 9x13 pan and let cool. This is enough for 4-5 rolls.

Spicy Tuna Roll Filling

1 can tuna fish
heaping tablespoon mayonnaise
heaping tablespoon sweet chili sauce

Mix together, then add additional ingredients to your liking. Last time I added a dash of chili oil, a little extra chili sauce, a few shakes of white sesame seeds, and a few shakes of shiso furikake. I like mine spicy.

Spread rice about 1/3rd inch thick on all but bottom inch of nori wrapper (on top of a bamboo roller), lay a line of tuna filling across the middle of the rice, and roll.

This made 3 thin rolls. The smaller it is, the better for Ernie!

Chicken Katsu Rolls

microwaved chicken nuggets, cut into 1/2 inch strips

Prepare sushi wrapper as above, and make a line of chicken across. Roll.

(I know, I know...but really, these were yummy! And most of our friends have chicken nuggets in the freezer.)