My Healthy Kitchen – Quinoa Sushi

So with my Quinoa obsession starting a few months ago I have been looking for all sorts of crazy and obviously healthy recipes to experiment with. The one recipe that blew my mind as I was on my usual afternoon Pinterest hack was Quinoa Sushi. This specific recipe that I got from iwashyoudry included crispy fried bacon and sun dried tomatoes as a filling! Yum yum!! I wanted to go with something a little more traditional and with 2 of my favorite sushi fillings, avocado and salmon. I was amazed at how easy it was. All u do is replace the rice with the Quinoa and cook it almost exactly the same way. I mean really! Quinoa sushi? Now I love sushi. I even flew all the way to Japan to eat sushi. I had no idea if this recipe would even come close to the real thing and if I would have gone and ruined a beautiful piece of salmon as well as my other love Avocado. It was worth a try.

So I finally gathered all my ingredients together and gave it a go. I prepared my quinoa the night before as it needs to be cold when u place it on the Nori Sheet. This was the first time I was using Red Quinoa and was pleasantly surprised when it sprouted in the pot! It was just beautiful. This is the recipe I adapted from iwashyoudry.

Ingredients

For the Roll:

1 cup of Quinoa (prepared beforehand and left to cool)

1 sheet of Nori (sushi paper)

1 Avocado, pitted, peeled and sliced

100g Fresh Salmon

1 1/3 cups of water

1/2 cup rice vinegar

2 tbsp sugar

2 tsp salt

Plastic wrap

Bamboo rolling mat

For the Spicy Mayo:

2 tbsp Mayo

2 tsp Sriracha Hot Sauce

dash of Sesame Oil

Instructions

For the Quinoa:

Wash the quinoa in cool water to remove any soapy residue. Place quinoa and water in a small sauce pan. Set to high heat, stirring occasionally until it reaches a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and let cook for 12-15 minutes.

Meanwhile in a small saucepan combine the vinegar, sugar and salt over low heat. Stir constantly until the sugar and salt are dissolved, then remove from heat and cool. Once the quinoa is cooked use a wooden spoon to scoop it into a plastic or wooden bowl. (do not use a metal bowl, it does not react well to the vinegar). Pour the vinegar mixture over the quinoa gently fold it in. Let the quinoa cool to room temperature. I let my quinoa cool down and then popped it in the fridge overnight.

Red Quinoa, Salmon & Avocado

To make the sushi:

I first made the spicy mayo by adding the Sriracha, mayo and sesame oil together and setting it aside.

The I placed the bamboo mat inside a Ziploc bag and then put the sheet of Nori on top.

Then I spread the cooled quinoa evenly over the Nori about 5mm thick. Leave about 2cm at the end of the Nori. This will help when sealing the sushi roll. The quinoa isn’t as sticky as normal sushi rice so take care when spreading it. I compressed it quite a bit.

I put on some sliced avo and salmon near the front of the roll. I also drizzled a little of the spicy mayo inside. Then I slowly lifted up the front of the mat and started to roll and squeeze until the whole sushi roll was tightly packed and ready to be eaten.

Then I cut it into 1cm rounds, drizzled some spicy mayo on top and devoured it without breathing lol. I’m lucky I managed to get any pictures once I was done. It tasted brilliant. I could definitely taste the quinoa and even though it was a bit loose it was fantastic. It had the correct balance of sweet and sour inside and the spicy mayo just finished it off perfectly. I would have even dipped the roll in some soy sauce had I had any. I’m certainly gonna try this again and see what other ingredients compliment the quinoa. Maybe even a spicy shrimp? Keep ur bellies posted.

My Japanese Food Adventures – Tsukiji Fish Market

On our Japanese adventures there was one place that we definitely had to go to and that was the Tsukiji Fish Market. The biggest fish market in the world!! Thousands of kilograms of anything that was born and bred in the ocean finds its way to this market. One of the most popular things to do at this market as a tourist is to attend the Tuna Auction. This is apparently one of the craziest experiences you could have standing on the sidelines amongst rows and rows of frozen Tuna watching people yelling out prices and numbers. Thrilling to say the least however this fun experience see’s you waking up a little after midnight to get there by 4am so you can get in to watch the spectacle. Only 120 foreigners are allowed entry into the Tuna Auction due to difficulties in the past with them getting in the way or causing problems.

My friends were not too keen on waking up at the crack of dawn so I just decided I’d go on my own anyways. There were a few others from our hostel that were keen and I was pretty sure I’d run into them in the morning. I was so excited to be a part of this experience so I set my alarm and had mentally planned my actions for the next morning. The taxi ride there, the map to the entrance of the market and the cash I would need to buy as much sushi that I could get my hands on. Well it was a good idea at the time but unfortunately I slept right through my 4 alarms and woke up around 9am. haha. A bit of a fail. But hey atleast I managed a good sleep and I knew I would hear all about the auction from the others that actually managed to wake up for it.

We headed to the market a little later that day and couldn’t wait to smash some sushi in our faces. The market itself is huuuuuge! Rows and rows and blocks and blocks of vendors selling everything imaginable. Many things I didn’t even recognize. I was in awe at the amount of Tuna that I saw getting sliced and prepped for restaurant owners and wholesalers. It was amazing. I was so hungry. After we walked around for a good hour or so we went and found some delicious sushi and ate ourselves into a sushi coma. That experience was exactly what I had expected and wanted to have had in Japan. Sushi overload.

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