Portabella Sushi Rolls

[I apologize for not posting the sushi recipe yesterday as promised; I tried all day, but Blogger just was not cooperating. Anyone else having this problem?]

Those of you who are eager to get out your sushi mats might want to take a look at some of my older sushi recipes. In this recipe and the next one (coming soon), I’m making sushi that doesn’t need rolling.

These portabella rolls are made by pressing the sticky rice into cylinders or rectangles, similar to onigiri or nigiri. There are rice molds that you can buy to help you do this, and they’ll probably make neater rolls than mine. But I don’t have any yet (they’re on my wish list), so I just formed the rolls by shaping the rice in my hands.

This recipe is a re-creation of a shiitake roll my husband and I had in a restaurant years ago. I didn’t have any fresh shiitake mushrooms, and I have limited memory of the original rolls, but these simple rolls turned out delicious. They were so good, in fact, that my daughter, who usually eats mushrooms only if they’re hidden by other ingredients, ate her share and tried to take mine!

Portabella Rolls

1 cup vegetable broth
1 tbsp. soy sauce
2 tsp. ginger
2 cloves garlic
1 large portabella mushroom, sliced 1/4-inch thick
brown sushi rice (1 cup cooked rice mixed with 1 tbsp. seasoned rice vinegar)
wasabi mayonnaise (1 tbsp. vegan mayo mixed with wasabi paste to taste)

Heat the broth, soy sauce, ginger, and garlic. Add the sliced mushrooms and simmer for 5 minutes or until mushroom slices are tender and pliable. Drain the mushrooms and save the broth for another purpose. (I used it to cook carrot sticks for my daughter’s lunch.) Choose the largest slices of portabella to make the rolls and use the remaining mushrooms for making soup or sushi salad (recipe to come).

Form the sushi rice into 10 rectangles, about 2 inches long by 1 inch wide. Place a dab of wasabi mayonnaise on one side of a rice rectangle and center a mushroom over it. Wrap the mushroom around the rice, pressing it into the rice lightly. Set aside and repeat with remaining rice and mushrooms.

Serve with additional wasabi mayo and soy sauce for dipping.

Tags: vegan recipes vegetarian cooking food fat-free Eat to Live