I love salmon, especially as sashimi, but a couple of years ago gave up eating it (and most fish and seafood) as I became more conscious of the impacts of my food choices. The only readily available supply of salmon where I live is farmed. Intensive aquaculture practices have garnered a lot of bad press lately, and you can read why here. After schooling up on the Australian Marine Conservation Society’s Sustainable Seafood Guide, I now eat a lot of calamari. But every now and then I crave salmon sashimi. I usually go a long way to ride out a craving. But if it persists, I usually listen to it.
These salmon handrolls were quite easy to prepare, and made a cosy Saturday night dinner for two.
You can use whatever fillings you have on hand – I like any variation of avocado, snow peas, carrot, capsicum and cucumber. I roughly measure the vegies against the nori to match the length of the roll.
1 cup arborio rice (makes three cups cooked)
2 tbspn rice wine vinegar
1 tbspn mirin
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
roasted nori
small salmon fillet (japanese egg is also good)
1/2 avocado, sliced lengthways
1/4 red capsicum, sliced lengthways
handful of snowpeas, sliced lengthways
1/2 carrot, chopped into matchsticks
1/3 lebanese cucumber, chopped into matchsticks
Rinse the rice (in the same pot you plan to cook it in) by covering with water, swishing around and emptying the water. Repeat a few times. Cover the rice with water, bring to the boil and simmer on the lowest possible heat, covered, until cooked. You’ll need to stir towards the end. Place cooked rice in a shallow bowl.
Mix the seasoning ingredients together in a small bowl and pour evenly over the rice.
Place a few spoonfuls of rice onto a nori sheet and flatten out so it reaches two thirds the way up the sheet. Place fillings in centre of rice and roll the nori up from the edge facing you, all the way to the top. Wet the top edge so it seals. Cut the roll in half, or into bite-size segments.
Serves 2.
