Ingredients

Serves 4

Miso Soup
4-5 cups water
1 heaped tbsp white miso paste,
1 heaped tbsp red miso paste
1-2 tbsp powdered dashi (fish stock)
Wakame seaweed
Silken tofu block, cubed
Spring onion for garnish



Norimaki
Seaweed sheets (nori)
1 tsp caster sugar
Oil spray
Sushi or shortgrain white rice (approx. 230g of cooked rice per nori)
Japanese rice vinegar or white vinegar

To serve:
Japanese soy sauce
Pickled ginger


Fillings:
Thin strips of Lebanese cucumber, seeds removed
Yellow daikon pickle
Avocado
Shaved or finely sliced ham
Crab, lobster or even tinned tuna meat
Seaweed salad (that light green stuff)
Carrot (see method)
Tamagoyaki (see method)

 

Method

Miso Soup

1. In a medium saucepan, bring the water to a boil. Ladle about half cup of the boiling water into a small bowl, and set aside. Add tofu to saucepan and reduce heat to medium. Cover and cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Add seaweed and dashi and simmer for 1 to 2 minutes, or until tender. Remove soup from heat.
 
2. Blend white miso and red miso into reserved hot water and stir into soup. Ladle soup into bowls, and garnish with spring onion. Serve immediately.


Norimaki

Sushi Rice:
Wash rice well in cold water and soak in fresh water for 30 minutes. Steam rice in a rice cooker. Cover with a damp cloth and leave to cool for 15 minutes.
Place vinegar and sugar in a saucepan and stir over heat until sugar dissolves.
Place rice into mixing bowl and pour the vinegar mixture evenly over it. Mix in well with a cutting action, being careful not to squash the rice. Fan to cool.

To Assemble Norimaki:
Place 1 sheet of nori, shiny side down, on bamboo rolling mat.
Wet hands with vinegar and spread 230 g of rice on the nori evenly, without squashing the rice grains, leaving a border of 1cm along the long edge.

Place filling ingredients in the centre of the rice.

Dip index finger in rice vinegar and run along exposed edge of nori to moisten slightly.

Roll quite tightly, applying firm but gentle pressure, using mat to help you, into a squarish cylinder.

Slice into rounds.
 

More filling suggestions:
Carrot:
1 large carrot
200ml dashi
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp mirin

Peel carrot and cut lengthwise into long thin strips.
Parboil, and when slightly tender, drain. Cook in remaining ingredients until just tender.

Tamagoyaki (Rectangular Omelette)
6 eggs, beaten
50ml dashi
2 tbsp sugar
1 ½ tbsp shoyu (soy sauce)
1 tsp mirin

Mix the dashi, sugar, mirin and soy sauce in a saucepan and heat until sugar dissolves. Pour into a bowl with eggs. Do not overbeat. Cook omelette in a square omelette pan. Leave to cool and cut into 6 strips.