Well after taking abundant abuse for meat heavy cuisine we decided to show you guys that in the proper setting we can eat a vegetable or two.  As usual I got overly ambitious and we were supposed to have natto-maki and kampyo-maki too.  Actually we did have the kampyo-maki but it was the last roll for dessert and fatigue had sapped my desire to even try and make the roll photogenic.  It wasn’t, so it will have to wait for next time.  It wasn’t a completely vegetarian meal, we grilled a hamachi kama to make sure that we wouldn’t go into withdrawals, just one though and we split it.

First the oshinko-maki.   There’s no big trick here just buy a a package of unsliced pickled daikon radish, takuan, and slice it into roll length and diameter pieces.  Throw some sushi rice on a half sheet of nori, add your takuan and roll her up.  Note that these vegetable rolls are all traditional style with the nori on the outside.  You could make uramaki, inside out rolls, with these vegetables but it might be considered poor form by some folks.

Next the kaiware-maki.  It’s a bit more challenging but still not too bad.  Snip off enough sprouts to fill your roll and let the sprout leaves dangle out the ends.

It goes particularly well with the rich grilled hamachi.  Some magical property of the sprout cleanses the oilness of the fish from your palate and really gets you ready for the next bite.

The shitake roll requires more prep but it is worth it.  Kathy’s comment was that I need to make more of those!  Since I started making this roll I have come to appreciate that shitakes are not all created equal.  The ones from my mainstream grocery are thin and leathery, but those that I get from Nippon Daido are plump and heavy for their size.  You still need to trim the stem but not completely remove it like I do those from HEB.  Here’s what they look like before the transformation into sushi fuel.

The next step is the transformation.  Saute the trimmed caps in vegetable or light olive oil on high heat for about 5 minutes until they have started to go limp.  For the 4 caps I made, I then added a quarter cup of duck stock, you can go with whatever, and about a tablespoon of soy sauce, another of mirin and a sprinkling of sugar.  Turn the heat to low and let the shitakes abosorb most of the liquid that doesn’t boil off.  This will take a few minutes and when there is just a small amount of liquid left, remove them from the heat and add 4 or five drops of toasted sesame oil.  This is what they’ll look like.

Slice them like this and they’re ready to roll, if you can keep from gobbling them up plain.  It’ll take about a cap per roll so maybe you can do both!

The finished product looks like this.  You can tell that my enthusiasm for artistic roll making was beginning to wane.

And finally the hamachi kama.  I wasn’t even trying to pretty it up at this point.  I was too hungry to fool with the photography.  It might not be beautiful but it tasted outstanding.  All we did to this was sprinkle it with sea salt, let it come to room temperature and grilled it over medium coals for about 10 minutes per side.  I covered the grill for the second side.  I now have a first class case of vegetable happy belly, with a bit of grilled fish to act as a binder.