Kitchen Kapers

I fell in love with sushi the first time I tried it. I have tried to research the actual meaning of the word, and though not conclusive, the consensus appears to be that the word sushi refers to vinegared rice. Based on this, vegetarians and vegans can happily indulge in this unique and visually appealing treat.

Although it does seem intimidating at first, making maki sushi, or the rolled sushi commonly found everywhere today, is rather simple once you get the hang of it. Becoming a sushi expert is another story, as the artistry and finesse of a trained sushi master cannot be downplayed. But for the average person at home, it is an easily accomplished task to create good sushi. The first time I attempted to make sushi, I was totally stressed about creating perfect rolls. So of course, the result was terrible. But once I relaxed and took my time and realized it didn’t have to be perfect, I began making better rolls. Making sushi is fun, when you let go and play with all of the great options there are for the filling.

A common type of vegetarian sushi that is found in grocery stores everywhere contains a combination of cucumber, avocado, and carrot. When I was in Japan visiting my brother, I was surprised when he told me that the Japanese don’t even put avocado in their vegetarian sushi. So, while carrot/cucumber/avocado filling may not be truly authentic, this Americanized combination is still very tasty.

The very first step is to make the sushi rice. The type of rice used to make sushi rice is typically a white or brown short grain rice. Cook the rice per the directions, and put into a bowl. Then, for every 1 cup of uncooked rice (which will yield approximately 3 cups of cooked rice), you add a mixture of 2 Tbsp. rice vinegar and 1 tsp. of sugar to the cooked rice. Traditionally, this is mixed with a wooden paddle, though a wooden spoon will do. Let the rice cool for 15-20 minutes.

Get the filling ready while the rice cools. Vegetables are usually sliced into thin strips. If using avocado in the filling, it is best to immediately sprinkle some vinegar on the slices to prevent browning.

Toast the nori for a few seconds. You can do this by holding nori sheet over a high flame from your stove. Then lay the nori flat on your bamboo mat.

Take a hand full of the vinegared rice and spread it over the nori sheet. Having a bowl filled with water and a little vinegar is essential for this step, as sushi rice is also known as sticky rice, for good reason! Dip your hands in the water and keep adding and spreading the rice onto the nori. I chose to leave about 1/3 of the sheet empty, though I have seen directions where you can also spread the entire sheet with rice, leaving space on the sides. I added a sprinkling of sesame seeds on the flattened rice. A little wasabi can be dabbed onto it at this point as well, but I chose to leave it on the side this time. Top the rice with some slices of filling. Temper your desire to overload the roll with filling! Practice restraint when it comes to this step. Stuffing the nori with the filling will make rolling very difficult, if not impossible.

Slowly begin to roll the end closest to you, over the filling mixture, using your fingers if needed to keep the veggies in line. Keep rolling until you have formed a log. It seems awkward at first, but with practice this does get easier, as you start to get a “feel” for it.

Once the roll is formed, all you need to do is slice it into approxiately 1 inch pieces. A good strategy for doing this is to slice the roll in half, place the two halves together, and slice them together. This way, you get more uniformed size pieces.

That’s it! It’s nice to arrange the sushi pieces in an attractive way that shows off the filling. Sushi is often accompanied by soy sauce, extra wasabi, and pickled ginger. The pickled ginger is used as a palate cleanser and is a great complimentary flavor that tempers the saltiness of the nori and soy sauce.

These rolls are not perfect. I think I added too much rice to the nori in this roll. And I still need to practice my rolling skills. But it was fun and tasted really good. Kitchen Kapers even has a complete sushi making kit that has everything needed to make fantastic sushi at home.

There are many misconceptions regarding vegetarianism. People think it’s very hard, too expensive or very time consuming. While overhauling the way you eat can be a little difficult and confusing at first, like anything else, it does become easy over time. It is even easier now than many years ago when I first became a vegetarian. Between tofu, veggie burgers, and soymilk, you can find everything that you need in the average grocery store.

The very first vegetarian meal I made by myself was a vegetable sauté/stir-fry. Before I became a vegetarian, I knew next to nothing about cooking. So not only was I new to vegetarianism, I was new to all things culinary in general. A good vegetarian friend at the time helped me with my first sauté. He and I chopped the veggies, made a quick sauce, cooked the rice and that was it! We’d made a healthy, delicious, and quick meal. It was so easy, and it’s still one of my favorite dishes to make, because the possible flavor combinations are endless.

Sautéing, of which stir-frying is somewhat of a subset, is a really quick and easy way to start cooking on your own. It’s wonderful because it goes together pretty fast once you have all your ingredients prepped, and you can really experiment with flavors. The basic rules of sautéing and stir-frying are quite simple. Using a wok is ideal, but a good fry pan or sauté pan will also work nicely. Use oil with a high smoke point; peanut and regular olive oil are good options. Chop your veggies so that they are mostly similar in size. Setting up your mise en place, which literally means “putting in place” in French, is imperative since the food cooks quickly and you need to stir often. Mise en place is simply a fancy way of describing the act of having all of your ingredients ready for when you begin cooking your dish.

Here is the mise en place of the stir-fry/sauté I made this weekend:

You should also stagger the timing when you add your vegetables to the pan according to how quickly they cook. Some vegetables benefit from parboiling, which is when you add vegetables to boiling water for a minute or two, then shock the vegetable by adding it to ice water. The vegetable partially cooks and becomes slightly tender while still retaining its vibrant color. Harder vegetables, such as broccoli or cauliflower, benefit from this process. Once the vegetables in the fry pan start to soften to a crisp tender, add some liquid, which may include soy sauce, vinegars, or a little stock or broth, dependent on your taste preferences. Additions like nuts, tofu, tempeh, or seitan can add additional heartiness if desired.

I personally like to choose a mixture of vegetables based on color. We do eat with our eyes first, and I like to have a variety of contrasting color as well as textures. For this sauté, I knew I definitely wanted broccoli in the dish, so I deliberately chose an orange bell pepper as opposed to a green one. For heat I wanted a red chili pepper, but the supermarket was out of them, so I substituted a long hot pepper, with a dash of red pepper flakes. This is exactly what makes sautéing or stir-frying so great! I simply subbed one veggie for another very easily. The onions, although being white, do add another layer of color.

I then mixed up some soy sauce, fresh squeezed orange juice, and a splash of mirin, a Japanese rice wine. Once I had the veggies cooked to crisp tender, I added this and cooked everything for a few minutes more. I had cooked up some rice to go with the stir-fry so I put the rice on a plate, and then piled on the veggies. I sprinkled some sesame seeds on top for some crunch, and a swirl of toasted sesame oil which adds a rich nuttiness and more depth to the overall flavor.

The way you serve a vegetable stir-fry/sauté can also vary. In this instance, I chose to serve mine with rice, but you can place the veggies on top of any grain, such as quinoa or millet, pasta, or simply serve it alone as a side dish.

This is only one of the many culinary possibilities out there for vegetarians and vegans. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled in the coming months, as I’m working on a series of more blogs about vegetarianism and how to incorporate vegetarian dishes into your cooking repertoire.

I’ve been making quite a bit of beef jerky at home. It’s affordable, great for snacks when you travel, and keeps for long periods of time (the original point of jerky when cowboys made it on the range). A jerky recipe can be almost anything. If you do a quick search online you’ll come up with hundreds. I made this batch using a modified version of the recipe found in Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn. Although it’s not one of the cookbooks that we carry, I highly recommend it if you’re at all interested in the subject.

Ingredients I used for this batch
1 tablespoon sea salt or kosher salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 cup finely chopped chipotles in adobo sauce (this is the basic canned variety you find in the international section of the supermarket).
About 1 pound of beef. You want a lean cut with long muscle grain, such as eye of round or flank steak. In this particular batch I used half of a two pound eye of round roast.

Preparation
Trim all fat from the meat. Fat will not dry and can become rancid.
Cut the meat, with the grain, into large pieces about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. I used a meat slicer for this step. It helps to partially freeze the meat so it’s a bit more rigid to work with.
Cut the meat, with the grain again, using a sharp knife. The width of the final strips can really be up to your personal preference. I trim all little spots of remaining fat at this point, so the width of my strips depends largely on where the meat gets trimmed. Out of the pound of meat I started with, I ended up with 11 ounces of fat-free meat for jerkey. I saved all of the trimmings and used them for a tasty cheesesteak!

Mix all ingredients, except the meat, in a bowl. Add the meat to the bowl and mix around, so that the meat is fully covered in the mixture. Cover bowl and place in the fridge for about 24 hours. You can vary this time a bit to suit your schedule.

Drying
Drying is, obviously, the part that will turn this into Jerky. Bacteria and other nasties that spoil food need water to thrive. Remove the water and the meat will store. There are a few options for drying the jerky, and you don’t necessarily need heat:

a) Use a food dehydrator.
b) Dry it in your oven. I’ve never used this method, but there are plenty of instructions online.
c) Alton Brown has an interesting drying method using a box fan.
d) I built a box that goes over one of my forced air registers (pictures below). I like this method because I’m not using any extra energy; just harnessing air that’s already heating my house. And it makes the house smell great too! Because it’s the movement of air that dries the meat, not the heat, I should get great results this summer as well with the AC on.