Spicy Indian Sushi

Who says Sushi can be made with only uncooked sea-food or raw vegetables? My little parcels of joy can change the way we eat indian food. I feel I am down with Sushi mania now and I suppose my daughter Asma who is Sushi crazy has already infected me!! I enjoy eating all kinds of Sushi except the ones with the soft shell crab coz the whole crab is stuffed with its shell which I find unappetizing to my palate.                                                                                 

I always craved for some spicy Sushi and being a fond lover of Indian food I longed to indianize the Sushi. Asma's crazy culinary adventures dragged her away from Indian food altogether and she was beginning to develop a hatred for indian cuisine which really hurt me. Last week I packed the indian sushi stuffed with the fried chilly shrimp for her lunch expecting her to throw it away (usually she never touched the shrimp if I made them in indian style). But I was shocked with disbelief when she told me that it was delicious and that she not only ate it but enjoyed it too. 

Here's the Sushi and its Recipe!

Ingredients: 

2 cups Sushi Rice boiled / steamed

1 Pack Sea weed 

20 Jumbo Black Tiger Shrimp or any other variety but uncooked 

1 tsp Kashmiri Red chilly powder

1/2 tsp Turmeric

1 tsp Ginger garlic paste

1 cup Shredded coconut

1/2 cup Cashew nuts 

2 tsp MTR chutney masala

2 tbs Vegetable oil 

Salt as per taste

Wasabi, pickled ginger, soy sauce with ginger and green chillies or frank's red hot sauce etc as condiments.

Sushi mat, Cutting board, Cling wrap for preparation. 

Method:

1.Peel, wash, devein and clean the shrimp.

2. Add salt, turmeric, red chilly powder and ginger garlic paste to the shrimp, mix well.

3. Fry them in a tbs of vegetable oil in a skillet or wok on both the sides and set aside.

4. Roast the shredded unsweetened coconut in a non stick pan. Add ground roasted cashews. mix well and let it cool down.

5. Spread the Sushi mat on a cutting board. Put a sheet of plastic wrap of the same size on the sushi mat. (You may also cover the sushi mat with plastic wrap on both the sides if you want).

6. Take a scoop of the boiled sticky sushi rice and with wet hands spread it on the saran wrap. Press it with your hands into a thin smooth layer.

7. Now put the sea weed on the rice layer.  This is for inside out sushi. For the regular sushi the rice is spread on the sea weed.

8. Cut the masala shrimp into small pieces. Add them in a horizontal line on one side on the sea weed  a little away from the edge from your side as shown in the picture.

9. Roll the free edge to envelop the shrimp filling with both the hands tightly. The mat helps you roll easily. As you are rolling with the help of the mat, take care to keep peeling off the plastic wrap from the rice. You don't need to do this if you have wrapped the mat with the plastic wrap on both the sides. Complete till the end as shown in the picture.












10. Now roll it in the roasted shredded coconut and cashew mixture till it sticks evenly throughout.

11. Cut into sushi rolls with a clean wet knife and serve with pickled ginger, wasabi sauce and soy sauce. Enjoy!

Tips:

You can use different fillings for different flavours. I used eggplant filling, avocado mango filling for vegetarian sushis.

For traditional plain rice sushi, mix the rice with a tbs of rice vinegar and sugar. For extra flavour a little piece of the sea weed is soaked in the white vinegar for sometime and then removed before adding the vinegar to the rice. In Japanese "Su" means vinegar and "Shi" means rice. So Sushi is not complete without any vinegar in it.