When Joseph and I first started dating, he and the boys were eating sushi almost twice a week. They just love the stuff . I think that almost everyone that has tried it does. But I can't bring myself to try it. Just the though - I can't get past it.
But lots of people have told me that a great place to start is a California Roll. I don't quite know how that qualifies as sushi, since it is cooked crab and vegetables, but since I don't really know anything about sushi at all - I'm going to go with it.
In a moment of love for my sushi lovers and a crazy moment of bravery, I decided to try this recipe for California Roll salad. It doesn't have any ingredients that are strange or hard to find. It wasn't difficult at all to make. We even got the Nori (seaweed sheets) at our local market in the Asian section - and since I didn't want to buy a whole bunch of the sheets - I just got a bag of seaweed "snacks".
We didn't buy crab, opting insead for "Krab". I don't want anybody coming after me with pitchforks or anything, but I really prefer the imitation Krab to the real stuff. I know - it isn't a popular choice.
So we bought a package of the imitation Krab in the frozen section and we were able to get what I felt like was a ton of it, for a really reasonable price. I was actually kinda shocked at how low the cost was. - Krab for Everyone!!
Ingredients:
1/2 cupuncooked white rice
1 cupwater
1 small headiceberg lettuce, shredded
1 English cucumber, cut into 1 inch strips
2 avocados - peeled, pitted, and cubed
2 cups shredded imitation crabmeat
2 teaspoons wasabi powder, or to taste
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
Instructions:
Place rice and water in a small saucepan, and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 20 minutes, or until rice is tender. Set aside to cool.
In a large serving bowl, toss together the lettuce, cucumber, avocado and imitation crabmeat. Stir in cooled rice. In a small bowl, stir together the wasabi powder, mayonnaise, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar and sesame oil. Toss salad with dressing (recommended), or serve with dressing on the side.
When we chopped - we left the Krab and the Avocado in pretty big chunks - I didn't want the avocado to turn creamy and disappear into the salad dressing. And if I am serving a salad with Krab in it - I want people to be able to see it! ( See how fancy I am )
Joseph cut the cucumbers in small matchsticks. I guess that is how they are rolled up into the sushi.
You can do all your veggie chopping while your rice is cooking / cooling. Or this is a great recipe for rice that you cooked a few days before (Perhaps Cook Once, Eat Twice)
In a small bowl, stir together the wasabi powder, mayonnaise, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar and sesame oil. Feel free to taste this dressing as it is coming together. You really don't want to make it too hot - and then dress your whole salad with it.
In a large serving bowl, toss together the lettuce, cucumber, avocado and imitation Krab meat. Stir in cooled rice. You can either toss the salad with the dressing and then serve. Or you can serve the dressing on the side - which is not as good.
We did ours in two separate batches because I couldn't decide which would look prettier on the plate. I didn't even toss the rice mixture with the lettuce in this one -
So here is a salad that is -- Bed of lettuce, topped with a mixture of the rice, crab, avocado, cucumber and dressing. Although it looks okay, I didn't like at All the way the dressing turned the Krab brown. I thought it made it look pretty unappetizing.
So for the second plate, we added the rice to the lettuce and tossed those two things with the dressing. And then put them on the plate, on top of that, we added the cucumber, avocado and the Krab, then put the nori on the side.
I think this turned out just Gorgeous. I can't attest to how closely it tastes like a California roll, but the sushi lovers at my house devoured the salad and declared it a wild success and the new to sushi eaters tasted it and said they would really like to try the stuff.
