Beef and Vegetable Rolls & Sushi Rolls

Week 14 of the Cookbook Challenge, theme is Japanese. I love eating Japanese food, but I’ve never really tried to cook it properly, like with an actual recipe. I’ve had this Women’s Weekly Japanese cookbook for over 10 years so I think it’s time now to give it a go.

I decided on 2 recipes – Beef and Vegetable Rolls and Sushi Rolls.

Beef and Vegetable Rolls

2 medium carrots

6 asparagus spears, halved lengthways (I’m not a fan of asparagus so I substituted with brocollini)

3 green onions

12 thin slices of beef eye fillet (300g)

2 tablespoons cornflour

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tablespoon sugar

1/4 cup mirin or sweet rice wine

2 tablespoons sake

1/4 cup soy sauce

Using a vegetable peeler, slice carrot lengthways into thin strips. Cut carrot strips to width of beef. Place asparagus in a heatproof bowl, cover with boiling water, stand 2 minutes, drain, rinse under cold water. Cut asparagus and onions to width of beef. If you use brocollini like me you’ll need to blanch in boiling water for a few minutes as they need a bit longer to soften than asparagus.

Lay beef slices flat and sift 1 tablespoon of the cornflour lightly over the top. Lay 2 pieces each of the carrot and onion and one piece of asparagus across the dusted side of each slice of beef and roll up. Tie rolls with kitchen string or secure ends with toothpicks. Dust rolls lightly with remaining cornflour.

Heat oil in medium frying pan and cook rolls until lightly browned all over. Remove rolls from pan, wipe oil from pan with absorbent paper, return rolls to pan. Add combined sugar, mirin, sake and sauce and bring to the boil. Reduce heat, simmer, turning occasionally until rolls are cooked through. If thicker sauce is preferred, remove rolls and boil sauce to reduce. Return rolls to pan and coat with sauce.

Remove rolls from pan, cool for 2 minutes. Remove and discard toothpicks and cut rolls in half. Arrange on a serving plate and serve with the remaining sauce.

I was really happy with how these turned out, the meat was sweet and tender. The only thing I would change would be to double the sauce quantity as I found there wasn’t a lot there to drizzle over the rolls and some rice as an accompaniment.

Sushi Rolls

3 cups prepared sushi rice (details below)

4 sheets toasted seaweed (yaki nori) – from an Asian grocery

2 tablespoons mayonaise

1 teaspoon wasabi

1/2 cup soy sauce

For the filling you can use whatever you like, I used some cooked salmon and cucumber strips.

To make the sushi rice, put rice in rice cooker as normal. Make some sushi vinegar by combining 1/2 cup rice vinegar, 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Once the rice is cooked, allow rice to stand, covered, for 10 minutes. Spread rice in a large, non-metalic flat bottomed bowl or tub. Using a rice paddle or wooden spoon, repeatedly slice through the rice at a sharp angle to break up lumps and seperate the grains, gradually pouring in the sushi vinegar at the same time. Continue to slice and turn the rice with one hand, with the other hand fan the rice until almost cool. This will take about 5 minutes.

To make the rolls, combine the wasabi with the mayonaise in a small bowl and cover. For each roll, place a sheet of the seaweed shiny side down on a plate and add about 2 tablespoons of rice in the centre of the seaweed and spread the rice across the sheet, leaving a strip on one side empty. Swipe a dab of the mayonaise down the centre, then top with your filling. Roll up the sheet from the full side to the empty side. To join the roll together I just dabbed some water inbetween like you’re sealing a letter. Cut the rolls in half and serve.

I was actually surprised at how easy sushi is to make. Mine didn’t quite taste as good as the sushi bar sushis but I’ll experiment a bit more now I know how to do it!