Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Low Carb Sushi Rolls---Purists Avert Thy Eyes!

Lots of low carbers try to make sushi rolls low carb. I have read lots of recipes using the cauliflower-rice recipe as the rice substitute. The drawback with the cauliflower rice recipe is that the cauli-rice does not stick together.

When I was thumbing through a Raw Foods Vegan cookbook, I saw recipes for Vietnamese-type spring rolls using shredded daikon radish or shredded carrot as the substitute for the rice noodles usually found in spring rolls. My little brain started doing backflips! What if I used shredded daikon radish as the rice substitute for sushi rolls?

Unfortunately my local international grocery store did not have a single diakon radish. But they had a special on jicama (89 cents a pound!---that’s cheap in my neck of the woods). Why wouldn't jicama work?

Traditional sushi rice is cooked short-grain rice seasoned with sugar, salt and vinegar (typically rice). Since the jicama has a natural sweetness, I tossed it with a bit of rice wine vinegar. To avoid watery jicama, I sprinkled the salt on just before I rolled the roll.

So the jicama rice would not fall into tiny pieces, I coarsely shredded it, rather than grated it. The shreds do not fall out of the sushi due to the size. I found using a box grater to be better than my Cuisinart food processor shredder blade, because I can make the shreds finer by using less pressure while shredding the jicama.

Using jicama will make the sushi crunchy, which is not the usual texture of sushi rolls. But I don’t find the crunchiness offensive at all. In fact, after having an authentic sushi roll a few nights ago, I find the texture the jicama gives the low carb roll to be more satisfying.

For the sushi "rice"
Peel and shred one jicama using the shred holes on a box grater. Put into a bowl. Add about ½ to 1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar, toss. Set aside.

For the sushi rolls:
Fillings:
Crab roll:
use the meat of either Alaskan king crab or snow crab claws (do not use the imitation crab because it is high in carbs!). Mix the meat with a bit of mayonnaise or softened cream cheese, using just enough for the crab to loosely hold together.
California roll: Dice avocado. And extract the meat from either the Alaskan king crab legs or snow crab legs.
Salmon roll: I use Scottish or cold smoked salmon because I’m too squeamish to eat raw fish!

Get rolling:
Put the nori sheet on a paper towel (fancy folks have the bamboo rolling mat, but a paper towel works just as well!) Put about ½ cup of the shredded jicama on the sheet. Spread it evenly so that it covers about 2/3 of the sheet. Sprinkle a pinch of salt over the jicama. If desired, smear some wasabi paste down the middle of the jicama. Layer your filling on top. And roll. Slice. Arrange prettily on a plate. Eat.

(One of these days, I will find stem ginger to make my own pickled ginger slices, until then I'm stuck using the pickled ginger made with artificial sweetener my international store sells.)

1 comment:

Megs said...

FYI: The shred holes on a box grater are the large holes.
--Megs