Hajimemashite, Vegan Sushi!

We are back with round two of our vegan Asian creations. We decided this evening to tackle Japanese cuisine with some vegan flare. We have had vegan versions of sushi before but it was a bit uninspired, only consisting of raw vegetables, rice and seaweed. We wanted to bring some life to our sushi!

Sushi should be an art form, beautiful colors, textures and flavors are carefully combined to make a delight for the eye and the palate. To complement our sushi we made a vegan miso soup and let’s not forget the dessert, a coconut, banana, ginger ice-cream.

Traditional miso soup is made with something called dashi. Dashi is a Japanese stock that is made with fish. Having said that, Japan has a large population of Buddhists, so it is not impossible to find Miso soup made without dashi. A big bowl of steaming Miso soup is an Olive and Button staple, but we decided that we wanted to stray from the traditional recipe and put our own slight spin on it for a richer, deeper flavor.

One of Olive’s absolute favorite Japanese dishes before becoming a vegan was Tamago. Tamago literally means “egg” in Japanese. Tamago is traditionally used in a Nigiri style of sushi where the rice is hand formed, topped with seafood or egg and bound together with a thin strip of Nori (seaweed). We wanted to recreate a Nigiri sushi similar to Tamago.

One of Button’s favorite’s before deciding to “veganize” was Unagi sushi which is traditionally made with barbecued Eel. This was easily recreated by baking thinly sliced tofu in our Japanese inspired barbecue sauce.

To get the desired colors, textures and flavors we used a plethora of colorful vegetables. We roasted some and left the others raw. We did stray quite a bit from traditional sushi ingredients. Because we weren’t using the often bold flavors of seafood we chose to use a dynamic combination of vegetables and seasonings.

Roasted Ingredients:

Yam

Onion

Garlic

Yellow and Red Peppers

Zucchini

BBQ Tofu

Sesame Tempeh Strips

Raw Ingredients:

Avocado

Kale (remove stems)

Red and Yellow Peppers

Mushrooms

Cucumber

The Nigiri sushi for most people is simpler to make, consume and are quite pleasing to the eye. The Maki sushi (rolls) can be a little challenging but with the right technique can be made with some ease. If you’ve never made a sushi roll before we suggest taking a look at MakeMySushi.com, it is filled with tips, and videos. The main things to remember are, let your rice cool completely, use a bowl of water for dipping your fingers in to avoid rice from sticking, take your time, use even pressure when rolling, let the rolls sit for 20 minutes in the fridge before cutting, cut with a sharp serrated knife, and most importantly HAVE FUN!

Sushi takes time, we also suggest starting early in the day. Start your rice first so it can cool, roast your vegetables early and bake your tofu. Essentially any item that needs to be cooked should be prepared in advance.

If you are interested in trying our vegan sushi with flare, check out these bad boys:

Sticky Rice

Vegan Tamago

Vegan Miso-ish Soup

Sushi Dip with Kick

BBQ Tofu

Gingernana Ice Cream

We are not pleased with the results. We were thrilled! Our boring uninspired vegan sushi days are officially behind us. This meal was exactly what we had hoped, colorful, flavorful, beautiful and oh so fun to make!

Until next time Konbanwa,

Olive and Button