Day 3 on the "Aghadoe" Set aka The Longest Day
In the busy life of this biker girl/cook/florist/"caterer" you find yourself juggling a lot in a day. This week was no exception. If you have read through my blog before you may know that I rode in the BIKE MS ride around Skagit Valley in September. A ride in which I covered 128 miles in only two days! Well any who I was invited to the Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Benefit Luncheon that of course was scheduled at the same time as my own lunch was supposed to be hitting the tables at Lynndale Park for the "Aghadoe" video crew. OH a challenge eh? I’m down.
I had been dreaming of making sushi for the shoot in line with accepting the job. All the members Julia Massey and the FFD love sushi, the crew will eat anything that is put in front of them, and well its so damn good. The meal I would assemble would require no heat which was key to preparing something in advance. (Though a hot bowl of miso soup would have been nice, since it was pretty damn cold and wet out there on set!)
The third day of the shoot arrived and there I am ready to rock. I had spent most of the night before perfectly (holla!) cooking two batches of sushi rice, rolling spicy tuna rolls, slicing cucumbers and stuffing inari. All I had to do was pack the cooler, grab ice (a must if working with and serving raw foods unless your consumers have rockstar immune systems) and drop off my lunch. I did make sure to label all of the food so that everyone would tell where the vegan food was and luckily for the glutard not one single grain of wheat to be found. I was a little bummed to not be there for lunch because truly as a cook, I love to see people enjoying my food. Yes, its always nice to hear kudos but I’d just rather see empty plates and platters. Thats where the proof lies.
Once I dropped off the sushi fest I rushed down to the Washington State Convention Center for the MS luncheon. I really had no idea what to expect; I looked like a million bucks, I was probably one of the youngest people there and I was about to eat meal catered by Kathy Casey http://kathycasey.com/. It was really an experience I am not used to.
I was invited by Key Note Speaker Trevis Gleason and was seated at a table covered in fancy desserts and bread sticks with pretty piped butters alongside some of Trevis’s close friends and peers. Trevis is the reason why I went on my first organized ride and got into supporting the MS Society. I knew that Trevis worked with the MS Society and that he and a co-worker of mine had the diagnosis, but I had never been close enough to anyone affected to really know how MS screwed with peoples lives until all this began. It's not everyday that you are privy to someone’s life struggles. Until that luncheon I had never heard about the specifics of Trevis's struggle and I was grateful that he is the kind of person who is not afraid to throw it all out there in the middle of a fancy-pants luncheon and tell people the shitty facts of his past and present. Speaking of, Trevis is the author of an amazingly honest and informative blog about Multiple Sclerosis. You can check it out here:
http://www.everydayhealth.com/blog/trevis-life-with-multiple-sclerosis-ms/. I believe that being honest and forward is how to get what you want out of life and its better with people like Trevis around because with a mouth like his, MS seems to be the only thing that holds him back from time to time.
MS is screwed up and messes with your brain and has no cure, yet. I rode that ride for people like Trevis and it felt good to see the support network of people who help folks just like Trevis every day. Yes it was fancy and everyone put checks into a bag at the end of the luncheon but really it was an event to help people in need. We all know that labs, drugs and trials are expensive, so thank god for people who are willing to donate to a cause that they care about even if all people can do is ride a bike...hopefully one day it will add up to a cure. It may sound cheesy but its the truth.
Okay now that I did my mushy and passionate speil back to the food. So hey I make sushi sometimes, its not hard. I used to think it was hard but after helping my dad make some rolls once upon a time + more recent practice + a sweet sushi mat...its really just about your rice. Screw that up and your toast. Sushi rice is not hard, well I’m lying, its particular at best. Don’t worry I’ve got some good instructions. Depending on how skilled you are when it comes to slicing vegetables, rolling your roll should be a snap. Big wide pieces of sushi fillings are going to give you trouble, think thin and long. Now a sushi feast of your own, at a fraction of the cost of what you’d spend out... is waiting (if you get the hang of this.) Then you're ready to impress, I promise it will.
Sushi
Truly you can wrap anything between those lovely sheets of nori and rice but I like to stick with some basics.
The Big Deal: The Rice
- 3 cups short grain "calrose" rice
- 3 1/4 cup water
- 1/2 cup sushi vinegar (you can find this bottled alone or make your own from mixing together and slowly heating in a pot over medium heat... 1/2 cup rice vinegar, 1 Tbsp superfine sugar, 1/2 tsp mirin, and 1/2 tsp salt. Then allow to cool.)
1.) Place your rice and water into pot then use your hand to mix the two vigorously. Empty water using a strainer and fill pot again, repeat this mixing and draining three more times. Rice water will become less cloudy over these washings.
2.) Drain the last washing of rice, add rice into your pot and add in water again. Let this sit for at least 30 minutes to allow the grains to absorb water.
3.) Place pot on burner and bring to a boil. Boil for a minute, place your tight-fitting lid onto the pot, reduce heat to medium and cook for 5 more minutes. Reduce heat to low and cook for an additional 15 minutes. (Lid on always ok?!)
4.) Remove pot from heat and let sit for 20 minutes to allow full absorption and time for rest.
5.) Preferably with a paddle-like spoon, evenly spoon rice into a large and wide bowl. Use paddle to fold and turn rice while sprinkling your sushi vinegar over cooling rice. Make sure not to mash rice here you're just flipping and evenly distributing the sugary vinegar.
6.) Let cool completely and ready yourself for some rollin' and stuffin'!
Spicy Tuna Roll
- 1/2 lb. Raw Tuna Saku, cut into small little chunks
- 3 Tbsp Mayonnaise (Best Foods Brand http://www.bestfoods.com forever baby)
- 2 Tbsp Chili Sauce (oh yes, there are a million different types I like called Cap Jempol; its an Indonesian variety. Plain chili garlic sauce works great too.)
1.) Place little chunks of tuna into a mixing bowl, add in mayo and chili sauce.
2.) Mix well with a spoon to combine.
3.) Taste and see if you are feeling like you need additional mayo or chili sauce.
- About 2 sticks Krab per roll (imitation crab stick, I wasn’t exactly going to go over budget for real crab, but if you wanna spend go wild!)
- Avocado, cut into long thin strips
- About 2 Tbsp cream cheese
- Cucumber, seeded and sliced into long thin strips
- Enoki Mushrooms (they have 4 inchish white stalks with tiny button tops)
- Green onion, sliced into long thin strips
- Fried Tofu, (I like the flavored varieties like spring onion or chili lemon grass) cut into thin long strips
1.) On a large cutting board, place your sushi mat. Atop that, place a large piece of plastic wrap. Atop that place your piece of nori with the more shiny side down.
2.) Wet your hands. (I like a little bowl of water placed next to my sushi area.) Now create a thin square of rice on top of your nori sheet. Designate a top and bottom, with bottom facing you. You want there to be about and an Inch and a half on your top side that doesn’t have rice and also a rice-less area on the bottom as well. Make sure to have the rice pressed out to just barely the edges of your nori. Now you’re ready to load up.
3.) Gather ingredients for the particular roll and place said ingredients horizontally on top your rice in a thin mound. Making sure to have your ingredients an inch above your bottom rice line.
4.) Make sure that you don’t overload your rolls, if there are too many fillings then you are going to be rolling an awkward roll. But if you wanna do it, do it. Then you’ll have mondo rolls.
5.) Once you’re loaded up, ready yourself for technique time! Grab ahold of your plastic wrap along the bottom and slowly pull up, at the same time as you are beginning to feel the curve of the roll, push the center of the bottom as well as begin to pull in the center of your roll into place. From there continue to pull on the plastic wrap so the roll continues to well...roll. Finish out the motion until the nori completely wraps around the rice and pulls away from the sushi mat.
6.) Cover your roll with a piece of plastic wrap until you are plating. When plating, remove rolls from plastic wrap and with a sharp knife cut 1 inchish pieces.
7.) TA DA!!! Serve with pickled ginger "gari", wasabi, and soy sauce.
(Understand that if you dont care to make a broth or cannot find frozen pockets you can just use canned pre-flavored pockets that are found in small cans in an asian grocery section.)
- Dashi flavoring packet (I found one that was bonito flavored.)
- 1 cup water
- 3 Tbsp soy sauce
- 3 Garlic cloves, smashed with a knife
- 1 Box of frozen inari pockets
1.) In a medium sauce pan, bring Dashi, water, soy sauce, and garlic to a boil.
2.) While waiting for your boil, prepare your pockets. Frozen Inari pockets are saturated with oil and need to be rung out before taking on the flavors of your boil. What you need to do is grab a pocket at a time and hold under a running tap of hot water. When the pocket starts taking on the hot water, begin to squish and ring out the pocket. You will feel the oil start to leech out and become drier, this is normal. Repeat with remaining pockets.
3.) Turn your boil down to a medium heat and drop in pockets, let simmer for 10ish minutes until the pockets have soaked up most of the liquid in the sauce pan.
4.) Remove from heat and once the pockets have cooled to the touch, ring out excess broth.
5.) Now we’re ready to fill. Grab a pocket with one hand and fill 3/4 of the way with rice, fold open sides into itself and place, seam side down onto serving plate.
-It is common to have just plain inari with only rice but I like to stuff other things in there before I fill with rice.
-For the shoot I did some with bits of tuna, about two 1 inch thin pieces per pocket and also a few pieces of pickled ginger or “gari” stuffed in there too.
- 1 bag frozen edamame (soy beans in pods)
- Water
- Kosher salt
1.) Bring large pot of water to boil .
2.) Add in frozen edamame. Cook for 5 minutes.
3.) Drain edamame and run under cold water to prevent over cooking.
4.) Drip dry and toss with a few pinches of kosher salt.
5.) Serve alongside sushi and enjoy!
- 1 lb. Fried tofu bricks (I prefer the flavored varieties like spring onion or chili lemon grass) cut into little strips then into cubes
- 1/4 cup chili garlic sauce
1.) Toss cubed tofu with chili sauce until tofu is evenly coated.
2.) Serve. Yup, its that easy.
- 2 english cucumbers, sliced into thin pieces (I like to cut them on the diagonal and also, using a peeler, remove about half of the peel in lengthwise strips for more decoration than anything)
- 1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
- 2 Tbsp superfine sugar (regular is fine, the superfine just blends quicker)
- 2 Tbsp black sesame seeds
- 1 Tbsp sesame seed oil
1.) Place sliced cucumbers into a medium sized bowl along with rice wine vinegar, sugar, sesame seeds and sesame seed oil.
2.) Toss to combine. Let sit a few hours to let the vinegar break down the cucumber a bit so that the salad has a nice bite.
