Maki sushi

A nice riesling suits perfectly with Asian food.

I love sushi! But did you know that sushi does not mean raw fish? Sushi is a rice seasoned with vinegar and often is combined with fish, vegetables or even fruits. You can even have beef on it. The sushi rice is often called as shari or sumeshi.

This weekend I made some maki sushi and sashimi.

Preparing the sushi rice will take about an hour or more depending how fast the rice is cooled down.

8 dl cooked sushi rice (prepare according to the package)
1,5 dl rice vinegar
1,5 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt

Cook the rice according to the package. Mix the sugar and salt with vinegar thoroughly. Pour the vinegar spoon by spoon on the warm rice. Mix the rice once in a while. Some say the rice has to be cooled down before mixing the vinegar but I have always mixed the vinegar with warm rice. After the vinegar is mixed with rice I usually let it cool down about an hour.

For the maki sushi:

2 carrots
1 cucumber
1 avocado
300-400 g salmon
noritang (sheets made of algies)

Cut the ingredients a bit longer than noritang sheets, this
makes it easier to roll the maki.

Cut the cucumber, carrots, avocado and salmon as long slices, a bit longer than the noritang is.

Place the noritang on a bamboo sheet. Spread the rice evenly on the noritang. On the other end place the long slices of vegetables and salmon.

Place the ingredients on the other end of noritang covered with
rice.

Start rolling the noritang with the help of bamboo sheet. Now you have a long maki roll. After you have made all the maki rolls cut them in smaller pieces with a knife.

Roll the noritang with the help of bamboo sheet.

Ready maki roll.

From the rest of the salmon I made some sashimi that is raw fish pieces that you just dip with soy sauce and wasabi. I also made couple of salmon nigiris (rice ball that has something on them).

You eat the sushi with chop sticks, dip it in a soy sauce and have some wasabi on the sushi. If the wasabi is too strong you can neutralize the hotness with pickled ginger.

This was just my version for maki sushi but try to add mayonese, tuna or other fish or even meat in it.

Soy sauce, wasabi and pickled ginger are good friends with
sushi :)

Grilled squash and pork neck with mint leaves

A perfect Asian barbeque!

This is a perfect light dish for summer and barbeque lovers. Tastes from lovely bbq are mixed with Asian flavours.

Use fresh ingredients.

You will need

300-400 g pork neck
1 squash
A bunch of fresh mint leaves
Juice from 2 limes
3 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp soy sauce
2-3 cloves of garlic
a thin slice of ginger
3 spring onions

Mix lime juice, sugar, soy sauce, minced garlic and ginger in a large bowl. Tear the mint leaves and mixed them with the dressing. Cut the spring onions and add them to the dressing. For those who love their food more spicy you can add some fresh chili to the dressing.

Slice the squash to thin and long slices. Oil the slices and grill them well. After you have grilled them cut them in smaller pieces and mix in the dressing.

Cut the squash into long and thing pieces, in this way
the squash is easier to grill.

Grill the pork neck well, add som salt and pepper. Slice the pork neck into long thing pieces and mix with the dressing.

The warm pork neck will release the flavors of the
dressing. Yummy!

Decorate the dish with some whole mint leaves and serve it warm.

Blueberry galette

Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Blueberry season is here <3 I celebrated the season with an open French blueberry pie or a blueberry galette. The whole point with galette is that you don't need to get perfect but that it looks like about right :) You can either make a one big pie or then several small ones. I made a big one in an oven casserole with 30 cm in diameter.

4,5 dl flour
1,25 dl corn flour (I used Maizena and it worked well even though it is not corn flour)
0,5 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
220 g butter
0,5 dl water

Filling:
1 l blueberries
juice of a half a lemon
1,25 dl sugar
1,25 dl potato flour

Mix the flour, corn flour, salt and sugar. Then mix it with butter that is at room temperature. When all the flour is mixed with butter, add the cold water and mix the dough well as a ball. Place the dough in a plastic bag and let it be in a fridge at least one hour.

Let the dough be in a fridge at least an hour.

Meanwhile mix lemon juice, sugar and potato flour with blueberries.

Potato flour keeps the juice from blueberries in the pie.

Use a rolling pin to roll the dough as thick as 0,5 cm. Place the blueberry mix in the middle and turn the covers over the pie.

Let the pie to be in the oven about 50 minutes or when golden brown in 175 ºC.

Let the pie to cool down before serving. Serve with vanilla ice cream.