California Roll Salad

My son really only eats California rolls as his sushi.  I  have slowly been trying to expand his horizon in this food area - so now he eats deep fried California rolls too.  :)  However, unless pressed to try something different he likes this roll most and that is that.  Except he could do without the cucumber.  I decided to make a salad out of it, sans the cuke, of course...well, for his anyway, mine would have some.  I LOVE cucumber.  I thought of this on my own, but discovered I certainly wasn't the first, as there was lots of recipes out there for it on the Interweb.  I'm not the hugest fan of "deconstructed" food, but this did seem like an easy way to enjoy sushi without all the work of rolling it, which I've never done.  I don't have the sushi tools for rolling it either.

So, I went shopping at my Korean market for convenience.  They sell this fake sushi crab that looks like real crab and is probably what you get in your rolls at most cheap sushi places in town.

It looks much better than that imitation crab that you can buy in logs or pieces in regular supermarkets and much easier to work with as you just need to flake it with a fork or tear it apart with your fingers  (what I did) and it looks perfect.

I looked at a lot of recipes, but none were exactly what I wanted, so I decided to just wing it and try my own thing.  I did use the dressing ingredients from this recipe though.

I used jasmine rice and I made it the night before so it would be totally cold when I made the salad.  I mixed this with rice wine vinegar, a little avocado oil and furikake when done and then put it in the fridge.  I've used furikake in my popcorn before, it's great stuff.  However, that night and the next day, the rice was sticky, much like sushi rice.  I had to break it up with my fingers when cold to evenly distribute it.  The furikake seasoning did make it taste like sushi though.  Next time I might try mixing in the furikake after the rice was cold and maybe leave out the rice wine vinegar (?)... I'm not sure what made it sticky...

My ingredients:

• 1 cup of jasmine rice (cooked and cooled)
• 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar (Mirin)
• 1/2 cup wasabi furikake and a sprinkle for garnish
• 142 grams container of organic, triple-washed baby kale
• 2 avocados, cubed and tossed with fresh lime juice
• 8 sheets of Nori (seaweed), cut into thin 2 inch strips with kitchen scissors
• 300 grams sushi crab, flaked
• 142 grams fresh East coast shrimp (just an added treat)
• 2 carrots, peeled & grated (this was added purely for colour)
• 1 English cucumber, peeled, seeded, chopped & quartered
• 100 grams pickled ginger, roughly chopped (I bought a package for $1.50 - perfect for this dish)
• Dressing ingredients as per recipe above with added pickled ginger juice and no sugar

Basically, I just tossed this all together, one ingredient at a time.  The avocado, nori strips and dressing went in last at serving time.  I took half out and tossed it with cucumbers for myself.  I topped with with the furikake and an extra couple of little dashes of Kikkoman sushi/sashimi soy sauce.

Surprisingly, I really quite enjoyed this!  It was a hearty salad with good mouth textures (crunchy, smooth, vibrant) and very reminiscent of eating a California roll.  The ginger, avocado, cucumber and crab/shrimp - actually all the ingredients were a harmonious bite together.  YUM!  My son said this tasted better than a California roll as it had no cucumber and had added shrimp.  I would do this again.  A terrific summer dish too, what a pleasant discovery...