One of our favorite snacks are those thin, crispy seasoned rectangles of dried seaweed. The trick here is NOT to buy those tiny plastic boxes with a fraction of an ounce (5-7 g), but to search in your local Asian grocery for full size sheets. (Although even these larger packages disappear rapidly in my household.)

Once I accidentally bought unseasoned seaweed sheets, which were not so good for snacking. So my daughter, who loves Japanese food sought to introduce us to veggie sushi. My husband and I are pretty much on the "no raw meat" side of things, although we will take our steaks at medium and we did try a small bite of the steak tartare at Brasserie Balzar, a fun, friendly restaurant in Paris. I remembered having veggie sushi rolls at our high school potlucks, along with lumpia and fried rice. So we sought online advice for making maki rolls -- a type of sushi wrapped using thin red algae (Pyropia) seaweed sheets called nori. 

The first step is to make the sushi rice. For this you need to get short or medium grain rice, which is starchy and cooks up with a sticky texture. This is not the same as the sticky or glutinous rice used in sweet and savory Chinese steamed dishes, such as this mushroom celebration rice entree. Just look for a label indicating that the rice is good for making sushi. While this can be cooked on the stovetop, overcooking of the rice at the bottom of the simmering pot is a potential hazard. This can be solved completely by making the sushi rice in a pressure cooker such as the Instant Pot. 

Next was optimizing the ratio of vinegar, salt and sugar. We consulted several recipes and ended up tweaking up the rice vinegar to suit our tastes. The rice should be mild, but tasty on its own without fillings.

The fillings can include raw ingredients such as spinach, and cucumbers, avocado, carrots or mushrooms cut up into narrow julienned strips. Fresh shiitake or portabello mushroom strips can be sautéed and seasoned with a bit of soy sauce and/or smoky chipotle salt. Squares of Trader Joe baked teriyaki tofu can also be cut into strips to add protein.

Or, you can make vegetable or shrimp tempura for added textural contrast. I found a great video explaining how to make long, straight stretched shrimp that will wrap nicely inside the cylindrical seaweed roll. In addition to making small cuts along the curled in side of the shrimp, you have to break the connections along both sides of the shrimp by bending them from side to side as you pull gently to stretch the shrimp. 

This worked out beautifully the first time we tried it. Two shrimp arranged head to head filled out the length of the roll. The next time, I decided to leave the tail fins on as a decorative element sticking out from the end of the maki roll, but I forgot to break the side connections and the shrimp curled a little bit.

When rolling, you do not need special equipment aside from a cutting board. Early on, we followed the online advice to use Saran wrap as we did not have bamboo rolling mats, but soon discovered, we did not need it (See tips). You do have to keep your fingers wet or the rice will stick. The first time, we ended up making a huge rolls, before we figured out to cut the 8 x 7.5 inch seaweed sheets in half to form two 4 x 7.5 inch half sheets. Depending on the filling, if the half sheets seemed too small to seal well, simply go back making the thicker full sheet maki rolls.

After cutting the rolls with a sharp knife (I have not yet decided if a bread knife makes it easier or not), enjoy the rolls with tiny dots of wasabi, slices of pickled ginger, and perhaps a bit more rice vinegar with or without a splash of soy sauce.

1.5 cups sushi rice, rinsed and drained

1.5 cups water

4 Tbs rice vinegar (unseasoned)

1 Tbs sugar

1/2 tsp salt.

Cook on high pressure for 5 min, then allow to sit undisturbed for 10 minutes before releasing pressure.

Mix in rice vinegar, sugar and salt. Taste and adjust if necessary.

For 2 cups of rice, use 2 cups of water, 1/4 cup of rice vinegar, 1 Tbs and 1 tsp of sugar, and 1/2-3/4 tsp of salt to taste. 

2 oz (w) fresh ginger root

4 Tbs rice vinegar

1 Tbs plus 1 tsp sugar

1/2 Tbs salt

Clean and slice ginger into slices. Place in small glass jar.

Bring vinegar, sugar and salt to a boil to dissolve. Pour over ginger in jar.  Allow to cool. Stores well in refrigerator.

(Recipe provided by Grace Young, but scaled down to a smaller size)

1 cup of sliced fresh shiitake mushrooms or two large portabello mushrooms

1 Tbs neutral oil like canola

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp smoked paprika

1 Tbs soy sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

Remove shiitake stems and slice caps into strips. Or, remove portabello stems, cut off any dirty parts on the base, and slice into julienned planks. Slice caps, cutting them in half longitudinally if necessary to create thin strips.

Heat canola oil in a wok or stainless saucepan until lightly smoking. Add mushrooms, toss quickly, spread out and allow to cook undisturbed for 2 min. Toss and keep cooking until water is no longer being released. Add garlic powder, smoked paprika, toss to combine, and then add soy sauce. Toss until dry. Remove from heat and sprinkle with sesame oil.