Experiment - Recipe: Sushi Rice (& various Maki Rolls)

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

I love sushi! 

I’m a grazer, I like variety in my food, I like to make lots of different types of roll, which inevitable means I end up with rather more than I could possibly eat myself!!  That's why I make it when I have friends around. It’s nice to get everyone involved in the rolling . .  
S U S H I   P A R T Y ! ! , or maybe a little rolling competition : )

What I’ve found is that if you give folk a set of ingredients and let everyone freestyle, you invariably get some pretty random stuff, and it’s quite often very good!! I always take notes!!! : )

In this post: crunchy tipped chicken and mango rolls, mushroom rolls, soused cucumber and cream cheese, red pepper and mayo, sweet lemon lettuce and egg pancake roll.

OK first the basics: the rice

One of the most important things to get right is the rice, you don't want it too wet or mushy or too hard!

So first you need the right kind of rice: Sushi rice has a grain in between pudding rice and risotto rice, very similar to paella rice.

The next thing to get right is the ratio of water to rice which is 1.3 by weight. So for example 500g rice to 650g water.

For other types of rice you can have a quick check on the Quick Ref tab on this blog : )

How do I cook sushi rice?  Wash the rice by rinsing it in a sieve under the cold tap, cook it with or without seasoning seaweed (EG kombu), one cooked turn it out onto a tray. Spread out gently to season it. Season with sweet vinegar, do not allow to go cold (makes the rice hard).

What ratio of water to rice? 1 : 1.35  rice : water  by weight will give you mid ground bite. 1.3 to go more al dente 1.4 for a softer touch

How much rice vinegar & sugar to rice? 

After it’s cooked: 60g seasoning per 600g uncooked rice - 10% by weight (add as soon as the rice is cooked & turned out)

or 

Before it’s cooked: 60g seasoning per 300g uncooked rice - 20% by weight (add as soon as the rice is cooked & turned out)

How much sugar in the sweetened vinegar?

Rice vinegar : Sugar : Salt = 6 : 6 : 1

Nori: Shiny side in or out? Shiny side out rook nice! (also rice sticks to the rough side better, so assemble rice onto rough side)

What now? Get rolling Daniel-san aye.

What to go inside? Man the variety and spectacular presentation and combination of flavours of sushi masters is truly beguiling!

Best learn how to roll before you go native since some of the ingredients are delicate and expensive!

I believe Japanese food to be both the most fun and the most f8cking serious you’ll ever encounter! (and very rewarding)

This post is very much about fun : )

ingredients (serves 4 as a starter)

makes

2 large rolls - chicken and mango rolls (6 pieces x 2 types)

3 small rolls - mushroom rolls (18 pieces)

2 small rolls - soused cucumber and cream cheese (12 pieces)

2 small rolls - red pepper and mayo (12 pieces)

2 large rolls - sweet lemon lettuce and egg (8-12 pieces)

For which you'll need 7 sheets of nori. (plus any practice spares)

for the sushi rice

When working out how much rice you'll need calculate with 50g cooked rice per small roll

and 100g cooked rice per large roll (more quantities here: Quick Ref Tab

250g uncooked rice rice makes 550g cooked rice

large x2 100g x2 200g

small x9 50g x10 500g

need at least 700g

for the rice (1kg)

450g sushi rice 

585g water

2 sheets kombu (optional)

for the sushi vinegar (100ml  10% of weight of the cooked rice!) 

46g rice wine vinegar

46g sugar

8g salt

for the egg roll w/ sweet lemon & shredded lettuce

2 eggs

15g flour

50g milk

1/2 tsp sugar 

pinch of salt

1/3 iceberg lettuce (shredded)

1/2 lemon 

1 tbsp sugar

for the mushroom sushi

250g mushrooms (duxelles)

1tsp soft cheese

1/2 tsp all purpose

for the crispy chicken and mango salsa sushi

2 chicken thighs chopped into strips

1/2 mango (fine diced)

1/2 red onion (fine diced)

1/2 chilli

coriander (torn)

50g bread crumbs

50g egg roll mix (see below)

for the soused cucumber sushi

1 tsp soft cheese

1 tsp mayo

1/3 cucumber (cut into strips)

250ml white wine vinegar

125ml sugar

125ml water

12g salt

for the red pepper sushi

red pepper (julienne)

1tbsp mayo

for the accompaniments

pickled ginger

wasabi

ponzu

apparatus / equipment

sushi rolling mat

nimble fingers 

square frying pan (for pancakos)

rolling method

When spreading the rice onto the nori (seaweed sheets) have a bowl of water with a little vinegar in it. Dip your fingers in it every time you grab some rice so they don't completely covered in rice and stop you right in your tracks!!

When cutting the rolls make sure your knife is clean (and keep it clean with a damp cloth during the whole process) and sharp!

sushi vinegar

Mix all the ingredients together until the salt and sugar are dissolved. (Warm if required)

sushi rice

Wash the sushi rice, then cook it in a rice cooker ratio of 1.3 water to 1 rice by weight.

Once cooked turn the rice out onto a tray and season it with sushi vinegar. Sprinkle the vinegar over a paddle, flicking the paddle back an forth to evenly distribute the vinegar. When mixing the seasoning in take care not to squash the rice.

mushroom sushi

This is a simple mushroom duxelles in a small roll, great umami flavour and not too much mushroom texture, which for some people is a real bonus!

crispy chicken and mango salsa sushi

This flavour profile had nothing to do with Japanese cuisine, it’s more equatorial Brazilian kinda vibe but it works well in a sushi roll, this is what experimenting is all about!

soused cucumber sushi

Fairly standard roll contents but pickled. Mix the sousing vinegar ingredients (salt, sugar, water, vinegar) until the salt and sugar are dissolved. Pickle the cucumber for 60 mins. Mix the mayo and the cheese, and combine the the drained cucumber and mayo in to a roll.

Quite nice a nice combo is plain cucumber with a little wasabi mayo wrapped in pickled ginger in the centre of a roll.

Ahem, before any of the purists have a pop, it’s worth nothing that pickled ginger is traditionally used as a between sushi rounds palette cleanser.

red pepper sushi

Again another bog standard ingredient in its raw form. Roasted red pepper and beef tartare or charred beef are a great combo

egg roll w/ sweet lemon & shredded lettuce

Swiss roll style with and extra inch at the end to hold the wrap, filled in the centre shredded iceberg lettuce dressed with lemon syrup.

Leftovers - Recipe: Special Fried Rice or Duck and Apple Haggis

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

I use all manner of variations of special fried rice to use up leftovers!  This one came about when I was running a duck menu last summer. 

Once all the development is done comes scaling it up for a banquet. It was the first time we’d scaled it up in anger, you always have to make alterations to ingredients, quantities and the process. On this particular occasion I totally miss-judged the amount of duck we needed (always have more than you need, hungry banqueters ain’t a pretty site!), and as it happens we had a giant haggis leftover too!! Secretly thinking RESULT!! : )

The key elements in this recipe are the caramelised apple and the haggis, they make a great backdrop of the duck and the cavolo nero. After the onions, which deepen the flavour and also add some lighter notes (spring onion), the rest is completely optional!

One note I will make is that the Braeburn apples that I used weren’t quite ripe which meant they had a good bite to them so they put up well with the caramelising process, staying in chunks and adding a sharp note when they were bit into, perfect against the haggis and the duck!!! Still I don’t think I’d use cooking apples!

Unusual, minimal effort and really really good!!!

ingredients (serves 6)

for the caramelised apple 

4 Braeburn apples (3/4 cm dice)

1 lemon (juiced)

1 tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon

for the duck and apple haggis

300g picked duck (picked form carcass)

300g caramelised apple (from above)

700g haggis (cooked and broken up)

cavolo nero (1cm slices)

1 leek (cleaned and small dice)

1 large onion (medium dice)

6 spring onion (chopped)

1 pepper (deseeded, medium dice)

2 carrots (medium dice - 1/2cm)

2 eggs

200g boiled rice

2 roast potatoes (coarse chop)

for the garnish

5g chives (chopped)

caramelised apple 

Juice the lemon into a bowl big enough to hold the apples 

Peel and dice the apples about 3/4 cm dice. Add them to the lemon juice and toss to coat them and stop them going brown.

You want them to release a burst of flavour when you bite into the chunks, smaller than this and they’ll turn to mush!

Once they’re all dice put them into a medium hot pan and allow them to release juice without moving them about too much.

Once they’ve stopped releasing juice and there’s almost none left add the cinnamon and the sugar and toss them to coat well.

Leave them until the sugar stars to caramelise the apple chunks, once done put them aside until needed.

for the duck and apple haggis

Add a little oil and the eggs to a hot pan then add the boiled rice and chopped roast potatoes and mix well, one the egg is cooked put the mix into a large mixing bowl. This step is optional, I was just using up leftovers, that is after all the point or the exercise!

The bowl is not optional!! The rice and potatoes are!! K?

Next make a kind of mirepoix from the onion, leek, pepper, carrots and cavolo nero, season and once cooked add this to the mixing bowl.

Add a little more oil to the pan and ad the picked duck pieces toss to coat them (a smidgen of hoisin sauce at this point doesn’t hurt but it’s optional) and then leave them a few minutes to crisp up a little. Add them to the mix.

Right, time to release the Haggis! Add some more oil to the pan and add the crumbled (already cooked haggis) and warm through. Add this to the mix and mix in well.

Then mix in the raw chopped spring onion and lastly gently fold in the caramelised apple

to serve

Chuck some chopped chives over the top and serve immediately!! I served this with some larger duck pieces and hoisin sauce and some soused cucumber and mange tout.

variations

It really doesn’t need the rice or roast potatoes! The haggis is a good stogy substance and will put up with being loaded with quite a lot of vegetable! Pick what every you want! Pork goes well with this too instead of duck. . . 

It ain’t going to get any Michelin Stars but it’s a good feed if there are a few of you!! : )

Recipe: (a nod to) Salad Nicoise (using Preserved Salted Sardine or Anchovy)

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

I made this at Halloween last year, crazy talk I know!! The weather was so nice  the dish just seemed to suit! It was 22C in London!! Barking! It’s cobbled together from stuff that was in the kitchen that day and some preserved sardines I made earlier in the year.

Boiled potatoes sautéed with chorizo make a nice addition to this classic salad . . . 

ingredients (serves 2, 4 as a starter)

for the salad

100g mixed salad leaves (the curly type are nice, bit of rocket too)

125g chorizo sausage (diced chunky)

3 medium potatoes (2cm dice, boiled)

2 slices white bread (1.5cm thick, toasted and buttered 
both sides)

2 fillets salted sardine (or 16 anchovies)

2 free range eggs (soft boiled)

4 small beetroot (pickled)

2 large ripe tomatoes

3 tbsp vinaigrette (35% vinegar 65% EVO)

for the sardine sauce

4 fillets salted sardines (fine dice, or 32 anchovies)

2 tbsp mayo

2 tbsp creme fraiche

1/4 cucumber (peeled & juiced)

1/2 lemon (zest & juice)

apparatus / equipment

stick blender (optional)

method

for the sardine sauce

Mix the fine diced sardine w/ the rest of the ingredients. I used 4 but you can use less is you like it a little less salty.

The cucumber gives it such a light summery flavour that goes so well with this salad. 

If you don’t have a juicer just grate the cucumber into the mix.

for the salad

To hard boil a couple of eggs boil them for 6 minutes then put them into cold water straight after, 4 minutes for soft.

Pat dry preserved sardines (or anchovies - 8 anchovies per sardine fillet). 

Make sure they don’t have any scales on them, scrape the back of your knife along the fillet of the fish to remove.

Cut 2 of the fillets into medium dice to mix with the tomatoes.

Cut 4 of them into fine dice for the sauce.

Add the chorizo to a pan on a medium heat and once it’s started to release fat, add a touch more veg oil and the boiled potatoes. 

If you rough the boiled potatoes up a little before adding them to the pan they’ll crisp up nicely, try it out!

Sauté until golden brown.

Toast a doorstop and butter it on both sides, then cut into croutons. (fast and tasty cheats croutons!!)

Peel and quarter the eggs.

Mix the coarse diced sardine in with some chopped tomatoes and add a little vinaigrette.

Mix some sweet pickled beetroot and salad leaves.

Assemble to create a feast for the eye and the palette!!

Tadaa!

Now that's a salad!!

Recipe: Caramelised Pork Belly w/ Boiled Eggs and Rice

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

This is classic Vietnamese fare.  Normally the pork is braised for and hour with the boiled eggs but I happened to have a rather large amount of cooked pork belly in the fridge so I though I’d do it a couple of different ways for my housemates.

This is a simple and tasty recipe; it’s a real corker, I’ve written the recipe how it would normally be made with uncooked pork belly.

The belly I had, had already been slow cooked so I put it in about 30minutes into the braising process so it wouldn’t fall apart in the broth, but still have enough time to take up the flavours and be soft and delicious!

Normally this is served with rice . . . 

 ingredients (serves 4-6)

for the caramelising slow braising broth

1/4 side pork belly (1.7kg uncooked weight) (cut into 3-4cm chunks)

500ml coconut water

1 red onion (fine dice)

6 cloves garlic (fine dice)

45g ginger 

30-60ml fish sauce (to taste)

80g palm sugar (or brown sugar)

6 eggs

caramelising slow braising broth

Boil the eggs for 8 minutes, then immediately run under cold water. Once they’re cold enough to handle, peel them, ready for the pot.

Fry the onions until they’re a little charred, then add the ginger and garlic and cook for a couple of minutes. Deglaze with a little coconut water and pour the mix into a bowl.

In the same pot add the sugar and a slug of coconut water. Cook on a medium heat until the sugar is a dark caramel colour, then add the rest of the coconut water (through a sieve). Careful it will spit!

Add the fish sauce, garlic ginger mix and the boiled eggs and set to simmer for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes add the pork belly, bring back up to the boil and set to simmer for another 30mins.

If you don’t have any 3 hr slow roast pork belly kicking about, sear off some pork shoulder and add it in at the same time as the eggs, then simmer for 60 mins. 

At the end of the 60 minutes check the flavour. If it’s needs it, you can sharpen it up with a touch of lime juice just before service.

thinking ahead

You can make this the day before and pop it in the fridge, and reheat when needed.

what could go wrong? (notes)

It’s impossible to cluck this up! Oink.

to serve

Serve it in a large bowl with a ladle in it, and serve with boiled rice.

Recipe: Arepas

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

Just recently I’ve been getting into my street food, London has a vibrant street food scene, Camden, Street Feast (various), Portobello road, the list is endless. I’ve I’ve tried in one form or another most of the offerings so it’s nice to try something new. 

Now this can be a risk, a lot of people like the familiar, burger, fried chicken, pizza, curry, safety init. Arepas were something I’d not tried and so when I saw a stand offering them I went in! First at mini feast in Shepherds Bush then again at Camden. Both times I got a pretty respectable bite to eat, so you can imagine my delight when I was offered one for breakfast on Saturday morning! I took the opportunity to learn how to make them taught by a cute Venezuelan teacher by the name of Valentina!

So with me and her boyfriend as sous chefs we cracked on!

Worth noting: The important thing is that you’ve got to eat them fresh, soon as they’re ready. The dough will keep in the fridge so you can keep what you don’t use for later.

Make sure they’re crispy on the outside and fluffy in the middle. Don’t make them too thick (more than half centimetre) or they’ll be a bit too stodgy in the middle!

This isn’t a purist recipe, I just watched, took notes and learned how to make some great food courtesy of Venezuela.

ingredients (serves 5 - 2 each)

for the arepas

650g coarse grain maize meal (pre-cooked)

750ml water

30ml vegetable oil

5g salt (lightly salted)

for the avocado chicken

1 onion

1 clove garlic

2 avocado

400g roast chicken

2 tbsp mayo

for the tuna (NB tuna is an endangered species -  best to stick to sustainable fish)

200g tuna

1 tbsp veg oil

for the scrambled eggs

1 onion (fine chopped)

2 tomatoes

2 eggs (whites only)

for the refried beans (quick style - original style)

1 onion (medium dice)

30g butter

250g black beans (1 tin, drained)

for the cheese

8 slices cheese (gouda, or emental, whatever you prefer)

some soft cheese ([p something])

for the garnish

Some spring onions, chopped chives if you like.

arepas

Couldn’t be easier, mix the corn flour and the water and the veg oil and a little salt until they make a “smooth masa” (a kind of dough mix), not sure I’d call it a dough. It's a kind of mash potato consistency.

Let it sit and soak up the water while you (or your sous chefs / helpers) make the rest of the fillings.

Once all the fillings are ready get a large frying pan or two, and run them up to “half fire”, take a handful of dough, bit bigger than a ping pong ball and flatten it in your hands and place it into the pan. 

Repeat until you fill the pans with flat breads.

Now it’s a patience game: cook 15mins, turning once. 

avocado chicken

Cut the avocado in half around the length. Twist it around the stone to separate the two halves.

To remove the stone using a heavy blade, hit the stone so the blade sticks into the stone then turn the blade to rotate the stone and remove it - it will be stuck to the knife!

Use the knife to cut a criss cross into the flesh, then scoop the contents out of he skin.

Tear the roast chicken into shreds and mix with the avocado pieces, and a touch of seasoning.

Add the mayo and mash it up with a potato masher.

Thats basically ready!

tuna

Empty tin, add a little oil (if it’s brined) and a squeeze of lemon, mix. Or instead of eating endangered species, you could use, flaked river cobbler, pollock, or sardines instead of tuna.

scrambled eggs

OK, so new one on me, sweat off the onions with a little oil, add a touch of butter, let it melt and add the chopped tomato, cook it out a little, then add the egg whites and mix them through until they’re cooked.

refried beans (short cut)

No excuses here, these aren’t classic refried beans but they do have the same flavour profile, with a different texture, no shame. Fry off some onions, add a little seasoning and the drained beans, leave on a low heat until everything else is ready.

what could go wrong? (notes)

You could get some uptight type giving you grief about the refried beans!

to serve

Put all the ingredients on the table, and let folk assemble what ever they fancy, take what you want to make your own crispy outer and beautifully filled arepa.

R E S U L T !!

AWESOME!!

Yeah . . . I know!! ; )

variations

Pulled pork is popular at the moment, maybe corn and ndugya, there’s plenty of scope!

That evening I made us a paella mixta with is always great the next day, some arepa dough and leftover paella & lettuce filling!! : )

Comfort Recipe: Smokey Linguini - Vegetarian (works w/ Spaghetti, why not add Chorizo!)

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

When I’m feeling like something that’s going to satisfy me, and not be a giant pain in the arse to make this really hits the spot!!

It does have one shortcut which is the garlic and onion reduction, I usually make a batch and store it in the fridge in an old mayo jar - one of the big ones!! Then I don’t have to chop onions or garlic or mess about at all!! Recipe for the garlic onion reduction is here (it’s basically lob ingredients into a pot and reduce it for a couple of hours).

This one’s just as simple!!

ingredients (serves 2-4)

for the linguini

200g linguini 

1 tsp salt

1.5L water

for the smokey flavour

2 tbsp garlic onion reduction (recipe)

1 tsp smoked paprika

10g picked thyme (optional but really nice)

slug of olive oil

for the garnish

chives or spring onions (chopped)

apparatus / equipment

colander

boiling pot

method

for the linguini

Bring 1.5L water to the boil (use kettle for high speed results!) 

Add the water to a boiling pot with the salt, dissolve the salt and add the pasta.

Cook for ~9-11mins depending how you like it. (9min al dente - 11min sooooft)

Then strain it, keeping the water to add a little to the sauce.

smokey flavour

First make sure you get hold of some decent smoked paprika: I use La Chinata - it has a great smokey flavour much better than most of the generic ‘smoked’ paprika you get in a lot of places. (you can get it at the supermarket too!!)

OK that said, dust a healthy tsp of smoked paprika over a medium hot dry frying pan. As soon as it starts to change colour and start giving off a smokey aroma (which will be 5-10seconds) add 2 tbsp of garlic reduction, a slug of olive oil and the thyme and mix well! Add the pasta and a 1/2 ladle of pasta water and toss the pasta with a couple of wooden forks. 

to serve

Serve on hot plates dusting with chives or spring onion.

thinking ahead

Now the pasta purists out there would probably have me shot, but this is just as good the next day and microwaves pretty well so it’s great to load up a takeaway box and have it for lunch the next day!

variations

Make it meaty!! Dice 100g chorizo and cook until browned on the outside, add the picked thyme, cook for 2 more minutes then put aside. Use the same pan for more flavour and add the paprika etc and follow recipe above, adding the cooked chorizo just before the pasta!Makes for a nice meaty variant!!