Quick Japanese rice dish
This dish was introduced to me via a good friend and she picked it up from her mother. Its one of my favorite dishes because it's super easy to make, it feels nutritious and wholesome and because it includes rice which I could eat for breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner, in-fact once upon I did exactly that. Way back when....
Easy Peasy Japanese
My friend taught me to use salmon for this dish but I imagine you could also sure tuna steak or beef. And you would marinate and cook it in much the same way as with the salmon, only perhaps slightly longer? Give it a try and let me know how it goes.
Here is what you need to make the dish for 2 people:
2-4 sheets of nori seaweed (same used to roll sushi in)
400-600 grams fresh salmon (tuna steak, tofu or beef)
2 tbsp Japanese soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil or safflower oil
0,5-2 tsp wasabi paste (amount depends on how much of a fire heat you want)
2,5 dl rice*
400-500 grams green beans
optional - roasted sesame seeds (buy sesame seeds with their sell still on and toast/roast them in a dry pan till they start popping and smell toasted. place to cool somewhere before putting in a glass jar or tupperware).
* I used brown basmati rice, usually I prefer round brown rice as its slightly sticker as with white sushi rice. You can also use regular white rice, but make sure its good quality either pandan or basmati or real sushi rice.
Cook the rice according to it's packaging.
Chop the protein of your choice into 2-3cm cubes. While the rice cooks, place the soy sauce, oil and wasabi in a bowl and whisk together to loosen the wasabi, as you would when eating sushi, but using a larger bowl.
Cut the nori seaweed paper into rectangles.
Marinate the protein quickly in the soy wasabi.
Chop off the end from the beans and cut into equal 1/4ths. Either cook or steam. Most important is not to over cook the beans. They need to retain a slight bite. I trick I learned form chef's I worked with is if your afraid you have over cooked any veg or pasta quickly drain it in cold water allowing it to cool off and stop "after cooking".
Heat a frying pan, to test if it's ready flick some water into it, the water should instantly fizzle and disappear. Now with a fork take out the protein from it's marinade and fry. For the salmon I prefer a slightly soft and almost raw in the middle so I fry it briefly, between 3-4min. Meat might need longer as perhaps tuna.
Plate all your ingredients and pour some soy sauce over the top and maybe some roasted sesame seeds.
NOW the trick that my friend taught me it to use the seaweeds paper as your "shovel". You literally place the paper flat ontop of your dish (mixed rice, beans, salmon and sesame seeds) and then using chop sticks you place them at the ends of the paper and then scoop up the food underneath so that you end up with something looking like a mini bite size hand roll or sushi role, make sense?
Quick Japanese rice dish
