Spicy Cold Noodle Salad with Charred and Raw Veg

Posted on August 30, 2021 by Chelsea

There isn’t much of a backstory to this one, aside from I saw a photo on Instagram (maybe through food52?) of a ramen noodle salad, cold, liberally doused in chili oil, and I immediately ran to my pantry to recreate it. I had a small bottle of chipotle oil in there, given to me by a friend not that long ago, or so I thought, until I unscrewed the top, the smell of rancid oil hit me, and I realized it had been sitting in there for at least five years… maybe longer…

It happens. Then I remembered the bottle of yuzu hot sauce* I’d bought from Trader Joe’s with no clear idea in mind of what to do with it, and suddenly, delightfully, that little bottle had a decided purpose.

Continue reading →

Ottolenghi picnic (no recipe)

Posted on July 26, 2021 by Chelsea

In lieu of a “real” post (haha), please enjoy a few photos of the food at a picnic I attended this past weekend. We were instructed to choose and make one of Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes, and we (mostly) followed instructions, choosing his burnt eggplant dip from Jerusalem, the chard and saffron omelettes from Plenty, and the cauliflower cake from Plenty More. K brought bread: a beautiful selection of slices from several different country loaves (the sesame seeded one was indisputably the best), handmade in what she calls her “nano-breadery” out of her own kitchen.

Unable to resist going off-recipe a bit, S. made us a drink, too: a fizzy mocktail featuring rhubarb simple syrup and a fresh mint sprig. I did dessert, not Ottolenghi but pulling toward some of his flavors: a massive rectangular pavlova drizzled with raspberry coulis and dotted with fresh raspberries, candied-and-aleppo-pepper-spiced pistachios, and dolloped with fresh whipped cream. As you can see from the final photo, we all but decimated it…

Breads of the World: pão de queijo

Posted on March 15, 2021 by Chelsea

For my first foray into breads of the Americas, I went south, to Brazil, for an addictive little puff called pão de queijo – literally “bread of cheese” or “cheese bread.” There’s some debate over whether this strictly counts as bread – the base is tapioca flour and the “dough,” such as it is, is formed in a method similar to pâte à choux pastry batter, the base for eclairs, cream puffs, gougeres, and the like. But based on both name and desire, I’m saying it counts.

Based on minimal research (the weekend of Week 4 in my world means a lot of paper grading and not a lot of time for culinary history), I’ve learned that pão de queijo was a product of colonization and the ingenuity of indigenous groups and later enslaved Africans.

When Portuguese colonizers arrived in the 1500s, they found many areas ill-suited to wheat production, so they – and the people they enslaved – learned from indigenous groups how to process manioc, or yuca. When this root is processed, it leaves behind an edible white powder. This was considered an undesirable byproduct by slaveholders, but slaves used it to make balls of starch that they baked and ate to supplement their diets.

In the 18th century, the states of Minas Gerais and Goias in southeastern Brazil became big cattle- and therefore also dairy-producing states, and cheese, along with eggs and milk, were added to the starchy mix to create these delicate crisp-on-the-outside-gooey-on-the-inside puffs. Olivia’s Cuisine suggests these little puffs may have been served to slaveholders as part of afternoon coffee service.

In the U.S., the traditional manioc is most frequently replaced with tapioca flour, and the traditional cheese from the Minas region – a mild, slightly salty soft cheese – with parmesan and mozzarella or queso fresco. Though it is not quite the same product, tapioca flour (also marketed as tapioca starch) has the same origin: the starchy yuca, or manioc, or cassava root, can be processed into a powder that, with the barest touch of liquid, becomes an incredibly sticky, glutinous mass that takes expertise and patience to work with. I noted to a friend while I was mixing up this dough that the combination of water, milk, oil, and tapioca flour already looked and felt like melted mozzarella cheese, and I hadn’t added any cheese to it yet.

My two base recipes for these, from Olivia’s Cuisine and Brazilian Kitchen Abroad, show much greater dexterity in working with the gluey batter/dough that forms these little puffs. I was unable to roll gorgeous little spheres like Aline shows in her recipe (although to be fair, my quantities were slightly different), and since I only had a single one pound bag of tapioca flour, I couldn’t add more. By my second sheet tray full of dough blobs, I was able to manipulate the mix a little better with very wet hands, but the next time I attempt these little treats I’m going to try for a slightly dryer dough.

Despite the difficulties in shaping, we could see easily why these are so well loved. They baked up into delicate, puffy rounds with golden cheese freckles. They are mildly cheesy in flavor but, when still hot, offer the same tempting cheese-pull as a good grilled cheese sandwich. After the first one (or two), I thought maybe I wanted them to have some herbs as well for additional flavor, but when I suddenly realized I’d eaten at least six little puffs, I decided maybe that wasn’t necessary, since I was clearly addicted without any additions.

The recipes I worked from claim to make about 30 little puffs, enough to bake up half for indulgent snacking and freeze the other half for a week or two down the road. I made slightly smaller “rounds” than they did, so I’m guessing I ended up with around 3 dozen, but the truth is I snatched the first one hot off the sheet tray, and then the next, and then N. had one… and an hour later I realized I’d never counted.

Holly the cheese hound sticking a curious ear out from under the table

* I suppose I really should have gone with Irish soda bread this week, though as I noted previously, I’m typically not very good at timing my seasonal dishes – I blame my day job, which often makes it a challenge to post here at all. Additionally, I do have several soda bread recipes here already, so if you’re looking to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a loaf, consider these!

Pão de queijo

Adapted from Olivia’s Cuisine and Brazilian Kitchen Abroad

Makes… 36? (see above explanation/excuse)

About 1–1 ½ hours, counting resting and baking time

1½ cups milk

½ cup water

6 tablespoons vegetable oil

2½ teaspoons kosher salt, or 2 teaspoons table salt

1 pound tapioca flour (also labeled tapioca starch) * as noted above, mine were fairly wet so you might ultimately need more flour. Unfortunately it is most frequently sold in 1 pound bags.

2 large eggs

1½ cups grated parmesan cheese

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Preheat your oven to 400F and line 2 baking trays with parchment paper or silicone mats.
In a medium saucepan, combine the milk, water, oil, and salt and bring to a simmer over medium heat.
If you are using a stand mixer, add the tapioca flour and then pour over the liquid mixture. Combine with the paddle attachment into a thick, sticky, pasty mass. If you don’t have a stand mixer, you are in for a workout. Dump the flour right into the saucepan and mix it into the liquid with a sturdy wooden spoon.
For either method, let the mixture sit for 10-15 minutes to cool before adding the eggs. You can run the mixer for some of this time to cool even faster – you may notice that mixing at this point produces a texture similar to melted cheese.
After the mixture has cooled for at least 10 minutes, add the eggs one at a time and combine fully – this will take some effort. Add the cheese a small handful at a time, again mixing well to incorporate, into a soft, sticky dough.
To shape and bake, I found wet hands the best tool. Dip your hands and a tablespoon into a small bowl of cool water, then scoop out tablespoonfuls of dough. If you can, shape them into a ball by rolling gently between your hands, then transfer to your prepared baking tray. If your dough is too wet to work with, you can either plop unshaped scoops onto the baking tray, or try adding more tapioca flour to the dough and mixing again.
When you have a full tray of dough blobs, move to the oven and bake at 400F for 15-18 minutes. They will be dry on top, with uneven speckles of browning from the cheese. We found them best eaten still warm and puffy, within minutes of emerging from the oven.

Breads of the World: Sabaayad

Posted on February 8, 2021 by Chelsea

Depending upon who you are, when you think of bread, you probably don’t immediately think of Africa. There are a number of reasons for this. For one thing, wheat is not a common crop in West Africa, which means bread and bread-like products in West African countries are made from other grain bases, like millet or sorghum, and sometimes don’t read as “bread” to someone more accustomed to a sliced loaf of white or wheat bread. But wheat does grow very well in Northern and some Eastern African nations, so wheat-based breads are more prevalent there.

Another reason might be that the European and North American standard of yeast-risen loaves baked in an oven is not the standard in most African cuisines, which more commonly cook their bread products on a griddle or pan or other heated flat surface. Many, many African breads are flatbreads. For me, and for this project, that meant I had to consider one of my early questions about how I wanted to categorize bread, because some flatbreads are leavened and some are not. Did the product need to be leavened to count as bread? Yeast is available almost world-wide, and in fact leavening with wild yeast was used for bread-baking at least 4000 years ago in Egypt. But there are other ways for bread to rise, and so many traditional African breads (and others) depend more on the application of heat than they do on chemical leavening agents, so maybe it’s more about the product being a dough (as opposed to batter – that’s cake) than about it being leavened. They serve the same (or similar) purpose in the eating, after all. Thus chapatis, tortillas, and today’s offering – sabaayad – are bread. And there are dozens of others.

I think my folds were too…shallow?… My sense after cooking is that the “sides” should meet in the center so the whole portion of dough is two layers thick.

There are, however, other African breads more similar to European loaves in terms of ingredients and appearance. In many cases this is the result of colonization – there’s a reason when you search for South African breads, you turn up a series of products with suspiciously Dutch-sounding names. That doesn’t make them bad, but they certainly aren’t, let’s say, indigenous to the region.

But things get complicated when you start to talk about indigeneity. Like people, food travels. Whether that travel is intentional, through migration, or unintentional, through forced labor or refugees fleeing persecution, people bring their food with them. Sabaayad, the rolled, folded, flattened, and pan-fried flatbread I’m offering today, is very similar to parathas: buttery, flaky flatbreads common to the Indian subcontinent. They are also sometimes called East African chapatis. According to the Immaculate Bites blog, there’s a fair bit of Indian influence in Somalian cuisine because the British brought over Indian laborers, which explains the similarities in their flatbread names and procedures.

It turns out that Somalis love bread. Sabaayad is just one example, but it’s an interesting one. Like parathas, Chinese scallion pancakes, and others, sabaayad is formed through several repetitions of rolling. First, you roll out your dough portion into a thin circle and apply an even layer of oil or ghee. Then you have a few options, all of which involve folding and then re-rolling the dough. This process, usually lubricated with another application or two of oil or ghee in between, is what helps create the flaky layers of the finished product. I tried several options in my batch, as you can see above, and found the final result not hugely different, so I’ll describe both methods in the procedure section and you can choose which you prefer.

By some accounts sabaayad is not an everyday bread, but a treat enjoyed at breakfast, sometimes with meat like dried camel or beef jerky, and sometimes with fried eggs. By others, it is a lunchtime dish eaten with stew. Some prefer a sweet accompaniment like honey or jam. The idea of hot, flaky, well-oiled bread with a drizzle of honey entranced me, so that’s how we opted to have ours. Other variations add a leavener like baking powder or sourdough starter, and some go an extra step and incorporate eggs or milk for a richer, more tender product. I decided to go simple, thinking it might best show us what this bread is about, and stuck with the four ingredient recipe I’d found: all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, salt, and oil.

We liked these – the honey route was the way to go, from my perspective, though I think I undercooked them a bit because I used a cast iron skillet and too high a flame. It sounds perverse to end up with undercooked product because your heat is too hot, but this is a question of insides and outsides. The outer edges were beautifully puffed, and the parts with flake were outstanding: crisp and shattering. The inside, though, was still on the doughy side, meaning it just wasn’t on the fire long enough (though I will say the one I popped into the toaster later in the afternoon was improved by its second round of “cooking”!). I’ll need to work on my balance of heat and cooking time as I explore other griddled flatbreads, and given what I’ve found thus far, I’ll have plenty of opportunity!

Once you start looking for examples of bread traditional or common to African nations, a tremendous number of options crop up – it’s not just injera, the fermented, scoopable, wrappable standard from Ethiopia. There are semolina loaves from Morocco, a rolled loaf from Tunisia with Italian roots, puff puff from Nigeria, and a whole host of others. I could easily spend a year just on African breads!

So I think the real reason many Americans – especially those of European ancestry – might not know much about the bread of various African cuisines is that they (and I must include myself here) just don’t know much about various African cuisines. As Marcus Samuelsson notes in the introduction to his cookbook The Rise, “We know more about ricotta than we know about ayib” (xix). There are many reasons for this, some of them ugly. But we can – and should – learn about these cuisines. Samuelsson goes on to say, “embracing a people’s food in your home is one aspect of recognizing the value of that culture… Black chefs’ names need to be sung” (xix-xx). And so does their food. There are dozens of distinct cuisines in the various regions and nations of Africa to celebrate. This flatbread is barely scratching the surface.

Sabaayad

I used two recipes for this: one from Priya’s Versatile Recipes, and The Somali Kitchen, which was Priya’s source. The procedure directions for both were fairly sparse, so I’ve estimated based on my own understanding of bread and my own results.

Makes 8 sabaayad

1-1½ hours, depending on resting time

2 cups all-purpose flour + a few TB for rolling the dough

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 TB vegetable oil or ghee + about ½ cup for brushing and frying

1 scant teaspoon salt

~ 1 cup water (you might not use all of it)

In a medium bowl, combine the flours and the salt. Add the 2 tablespoons oil (or ghee) and incorporate thoroughly. Begin to add the water, about ¼ cup at a time, kneading right in the bowl in between additions to bring the dough together. You are looking for a firm, not-too-sticky dough; it shouldn’t be too wet.
When the dough has come together, turn it out onto a lightly floured board (I went right for my countertop) and knead until it forms a smooth, slightly elastic dough. By hand, this will probably take 7-8 minutes (I did 5 and I think that wasn’t enough).
Let the kneaded dough rest in a bowl, covered for 30-45 minutes. Since it isn’t leavened, it won’t rise, but it needs that resting time for the gluten strands to relax so it will roll out.
After the dough has rested, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 8 equal portions. Working one at a time, roll the portion into a thin circle 7-8 inches in diameter.
Now you have two options for shaping. For a square bread, lightly brush the surface of your circle with oil or ghee. Starting with the top, fold down each “edge” toward the center. I think you want these folded portions to overlap a bit to cover the whole exposed portion of dough – in the photos above I have not folded in the “edges” enough.
For a round bread, lightly brush the surface of your thin circle with oil or ghee, then roll it up into a log as you would for cinnamon rolls (some recipes instead call for a series of pleats or folds). Then coil up this “log” you’ve created like a snail shell, tucking in and securing the exposed end.
For both, let rest about 15 minutes after folding, then roll gently but firmly to flatten.
To cook, heat about 2 teaspoons of oil or ghee in a skillet or griddle over medium heat. Again working one at a time, add each flattened circle or square of dough to the heated oil and cook about 2 minutes. Brush the uncooked side lightly with more oil or ghee and flip. Immediately press down on the browned side of the bread with a spatula – this helps all of the bottom surface area brown, but it also seems to help the flatbread puff up evenly. Cook another 2 minutes, until both sides are well browned and the flatbread is fully cooked inside – this took longer than I expected, which is why I’m calling for only medium heat.
Like most fried items, these are best eaten immediately. If you need to keep them warm while you fry off the rest of the batch, however, you can stow them in a 300F oven on a baking tray lined with a wire rack.

Project Cook: Soft-Centered Chocolates

Posted on December 21, 2020 by Chelsea

Well. I wasn’t going to write anything today, especially not about this collection of chocolates I experimented my way through last weekend. But then E., a friend from college I had NO IDEA was following along (hi E! I’m so excited you’re here!!), asked on my humble-brag-okay-mostly-just-brag instagram post showing off my creations if I’d be posting the recipe or instructions here. And after I was done blushing, I remembered I had taken a few photos with my big camera along the way, and hey maybe I could put up a little something…

This collection was, as I said above, largely experimental, so I won’t be offering a precise recipe. I’d made three of them before with only a bit of adaptation: the amaretto truffles (top row), a white chocolate ganache spiked with amaretto as well as finely chopped almonds and dried apricots; the cranberry bourbon balls (second from bottom) were part of my Bittman project long ago, though in this iteration I used spiced rum, as one of my intended recipients doesn’t care for bourbon; and the whiskey caramels (bottom row), from the now long abandoned (I assume) blog Cheese and Chocolate, changing up that recipe only by coating the set caramel bars in dark chocolate and adding a sprinkle of sea salt on one corner.

What remains were, by rows, a failure-turned-unexpected-and-monumental-success (second from top); an easy win (third from top); and a disappointment (fourth from top or third from bottom, depending on how you’re counting). Just a little about each, and then a “recipe” and a few suggestions. The failure-turned-success I’m calling “White Russians”: an attempt at fudge that was too soft and poured out too thin, re-melted with more dark chocolate, some kahlua, and a little bit of vodka. This time it did set, so it got a coating of white chocolate and a line of espresso powder, and everyone who has tried it thus far has oohed and ahhed over it.

The “easy win” was a brandy and cherry truffle: a bit of brandy and a bit of luxardo cherry juice in the ganache, along with chopped luxardo cherries, a dark chocolate coating, and a dried cherry on top. I liked them and I wouldn’t say no to another (or two), but they aren’t the ones I keep coming back for. Maybe kirsch instead of brandy to heighten the cherry flavor?

The disappointment was one I made especially for R., who loooooooves the Middle Eastern confection halvah: basically a candy made from sesame and honey or sugar with a unique, sandy texture. I’d read this could be reproduced at home by mixing tahini and hot sugar syrup (I used honey), and tried out a recipe from The New York Times. While the flavor was great, the texture was somewhere between toffee and taffy: at first tooth-breakingly hard, then chewy enough to make me fear for my fillings. And despite halving the recipe, of course I ended up with more of these than of anything else. Nevertheless, I coated them in chocolate, sprinkled on some sesame seeds, and sent them along. None of my recipients has demanded I pay for their dental work yet, so I’m calling that a tentative success…

But enough of that, Chelsea, you’re probably saying. Tell us how to make the good ones. Right. Truffles and their ilk require three basic things: a ganache, which is a mixture of chocolate and (usually) cream, plain old melted chocolate to coat them, and some flavoring and/or decorating agent. Where it gets fun is in the flavoring: though you don’t want to overload the ganache that forms the center of your chocolates, you can probably crowd in as much as 1/4 cup of finely chopped dried fruit, or well-toasted nuts, or even candied citrus peel or crystalized ginger. Maybe even candy cane, if that’s your jam. I like to use a flavorful liqueur as part of the liquid component in mine, but you can replace that with something alcohol-free if you prefer – I’ve also used a ginger syrup as well as juice from luxardo cherries. I haven’t tried it, but a small amount of vanilla or almond extract would probably be great as well, or even one of those flavored syrups used for fancy coffee drinks or Italian sodas. And of course you could also just go pure with 100% cream.

Even though I said I wouldn’t, here’s a “recipe” and procedure. Let me know what you try, and may your holiday, if you celebrate this time of year, be bright.

Basic Ganache for Soft-Centered Chocolates

I’ve never timed myself on these – let’s estimate about 30 minutes to make the ganache, a few hours, or as much as overnight, to let it set, then another 30 minutes to coat the set centers. This is a project.

16 ounces semi-sweet, bittersweet, or white chocolate, divided

6-8 tablespoons heavy cream

Up to 2 tablespoons liqueur or liquid flavoring agent of your choice

Up to 1/4 cup finely chopped additions (see above for ideas)

Toppings of your choice, preferably related to the flavors inside

Prep a containment vessel: for 8 ounces of chocolate, I like to line a loaf pan with plastic wrap. You could probably also use parchment or wax paper; just be sure all the corners are covered.
Melt 8 ounces of the chocolate and the cream in a double boiler, or (my preferred method) a glass bowl over a pot of hot water. Stir frequently, and don’t let the hot water touch the bottom of the bowl or splash into it. How much cream you use depends on how much liquid flavoring agent you want. With liqueurs and syrups I’d suggest 6 TB cream and 2 TB liqueur. With an extract, which are usually extremely strong, you’ll want more cream and less flavoring.
When the chocolate and cream have melted together smoothly, stir in the liquid flavoring agent, if you’re using it, as well as any finely chopped additions you’re using.
Carefully pour and scrape the whole puddle into your lined containment vessel and refrigerate until set. I usually leave it overnight, but realistically this doesn’t take more than a few hours. Once it has set completely, remove the block from the pan and slice it into your desired size squares or bars, keeping in mind they will be a little bigger once they are coated in chocolate. If your set ganache seems soft after slicing (this will especially be true if you are using white chocolate), take out some extra insurance by stowing the pieces in the freezer for a bit before coating them.
To coat, melt the remaining 8 ounces of chocolate, either semi-sweet, bittersweet, or white, in a double boiler. Place a big sheet of wax paper or parchment paper on your counter. Using a tool of your choice (I like a pair of forks for this), dip in each piece of ganache one at a time until completely coated, lift and wait a few seconds to let the excess drip off (or scrape carefully, if you’re impatient), then remove to the wax or parchment paper. If you are adding a topping of some kind, sprinkle or place it on before the chocolate coating hardens.
Let the coated chocolates sit until completely set, then box up as desired (mini cupcake wrappers work nicely to set them in), or just pop straight into your mouth. I won’t tell.

*** Other, less-involved ideas: dip dried apricots, or candy canes, or shortbread cookies in chocolate! If you want to be fancy, you could apply a white chocolate drizzle after letting them dry. You could also coat marshmallows, or pre-made caramels, or pieces of fudge in the melted chocolate of your choice (or, if you’re looking to mellow the sweetness of fudge, in straight cocoa powder). Prefer sprinkles to a chocolate drizzle? Get it. Crushed up candy canes to peppermint powder? Go wild.

Smoked salmon sushi rolls

Posted on December 7, 2020 by Chelsea

This is one of those meals we have all the time but it never occurs to me to post here. It’s just a weeknight meal. It doesn’t feel “impressive” or “blogworthy,” but as I was making it the sixth-or-so time in so many months, I finally asked myself why. Well, because, I answered (what? You don’t have these kind of conversations with yourself?), it’s so… simple. There’s not much to actually cook, it doesn’t take long, the ingredients are (mostly) really easy to find, and… why did I think this wasn’t worth posting again?

We’ve been calling these “sushi burritos” mainly due to size and shape, but they really are just unsliced maki rolls, filled with avocado, cucumber, pickled ginger, and a generous portion of smoked salmon. “No raw fish?” you’re thinking, “so how is that sushi?” Ah, but “sushi” refers not to the fish – though that is probably what many of us call to mind first when we hear the word – but the rice: short grain, combined with (usually) seasoned rice vinegar, and then wrapped, covered, or rolled with other ingredients.

Here I’m using smoked salmon instead of the more traditional uncooked fish. Though I agree it would never stand up against a beautiful slice of raw ahi, the substitution is nice for a few reasons. First, especially if you are limiting your trips to the grocery store right now, you don’t have to worry about using it immediately – convenient if your avocado is less ripe than you’d hoped. Second, it tends to be much less expensive. Third, the texture is not quite the same, but it is comparable – on the tongue this does not feel like cooked fish, and if you can find one that is not particularly smoky, the salmon flavor comes through nicely. You could also use a cured product like gravlax for an even purer salmon-y flavor. And if you aren’t comfortable purchasing or consuming raw fish at all, this is an easy workaround.

Aside from acquiring the ingredients, the most intimidating component of sushi for many people is the rolling: spreading the rice evenly over the nori, trying to keep all those central components together, ending up with a nice, tight roll and good shape. For me, though, it’s the slicing. That’s when things start to come apart: when you disrupt the structural integrity of the nori, now nice and flexible after absorbing some of the moisture and warmth of the rice, by running a usually-not-sharp-enough knife through it. Here I forgo all but one slice, drawing my sharpest knife just once through each long roll, on a diagonal, and calling it a day. We get to the eating part faster that way.

I noted above that the ingredients for this meal are mostly easy to find. If you have an Asian market nearby, they are very easy to locate. If you don’t, your grocery store probably has an “ethnic foods” aisle with most of these ingredients: the rice vinegar, nori sheets, and pickled ginger (the same stuff, often lightly pink, that comes on your plate next to the blob of wasabi at your local sushi joint) will more than likely be there. If you can’t find wasabi mayonnaise, that same aisle will probably have various options for prepared wasabi – I just get a tube of it and add it to regular mayonnaise until the degree of nostril-tingling spice suits my fancy.

I’m also using furikake here (same aisle), a rice seasoning that is basically a mixture of sesame seeds and finely diced nori, seasoned with salt and sugar. My current container also has bonito flakes, and there are spicy varieties too. Bonus: furikake is also a madly delicious seasoning mixture for popcorn.

If you are efficient about all this, you can prep your vegetables and get everything else ready in the time it takes the rice to cook. My rice cooker usually requires about 25 minutes, and I find I can usually have everything else prepped and laid out in that time span. (Yes, I use a rice cooker for this instead of cooking my rice on the stove. I like the insurance that it offers, since it switches to “keep warm” when it’s done instead of, you know, continuing to cook into a blackened mess because I forgot to set a timer and got busy with other tasks…).

The play of flavors here, as you know if you enjoy sushi, is so comforting and so, just, good. The avocado and salmon are rich and fatty, so the watery crunch of cucumber and the pickled ginger punch provide a nice foil. The wasabi mayonnaise is just background spiciness, and the nori, warmed and moistened by the rice, takes on a chewiness I really like against the seasoned rice. You could serve this however you want, though we like two rolls a-piece, each one sliced in half at a steep angle. No need for utensils here – we just pick them up, pinch the uncut ends together a bit to avoid anything escaping, and enjoy the resistance of the chewy nori wrapper with each bite. You could likely also wrap them into cones for a more traditional hand roll shape, though I’ll admit I haven’t tried it that way yet, and thus I’m including instructions only for my method.

Smoked salmon sushi rolls

4 whole rolls (serves 2)

30-40 minutes, depending on how fast your rice cooks (some rice cookers take longer than others, and can differ from the speed at which rice cooks on the stove)

2 cups short grain white rice, cooked on the stove or in a rice cooker

¼ cup seasoned rice vinegar (if yours is unseasoned, stir in 1 teaspoon sugar and 1 teaspoon salt)

optional: 2-3 tablespoons furikake seasoning

about ½ a small cucumber, cut into long planks as thin as possible

4-6 ounces lightly smoked salmon, cut or torn into small pieces

½ ripe avocado, very thinly sliced

1-2 tablespoons pickled ginger (also called sushi ginger)

4 sheets nori

1-2 teaspoons wasabi mayonnaise

First, cook your rice. Use the time as it cooks to prep the other ingredients: thinly slice the cucumber using a knife or y-shaped vegetable peeler. Cut the avocado into very thin slices. Cut or tear the salmon into small pieces (this makes for easier eating). Fish out the appropriate amount of ginger from the container. Get everything laid out for easier construction.
When the rice is done, immediately mix in the vinegar and, if using, the furikake seasoning. It will be extremely tart at first, but the vinegar flavor will mellow as the rice cools. Set it aside until it is cool enough to handle.
To build the rolls, lay a piece of nori on your work surface, rough side (if there is one) facing up, short end toward you (most nori I’ve worked with is slightly rectangular, not exactly square). Spread a small amount of wasabi mayonnaise evenly over the nori, leaving a small border on all sides.
Scoop on about ⅓ cup of rice and use your fingers to spread/sprinkle it somewhat evenly over the nori sheet, leaving a half inch or so border at the far edge. About half an inch in from the edge closest to you, place two slices of cucumber, then about a quarter of the salmon pieces, then a few thin slices of avocado, then a few pieces of ginger. As you can see in my photos above, these should be arranged horizontally from your perspective, and all fairly tightly together.
Begin to roll the nori sheet by folding the short end closest to you up and over the row of fish and vegetables, then continue to roll until you get to the opposite side. The half-inch border you left rice-free will ensure a clean closure of sorts.
I like to slice these just once, on a diagonal, with a very sharp knife. Then we pinch the uncut ends together a bit and eat them out of hand, like a small burrito.