Eat Me!  The Lazy Chick's Recipe Guide

SUSHI MADE SIMPLE

By Blanco

I do all the bloody domestic features, don't I?

Anyway, I'm turning Japanese, and I really think so as well.

Pinched from the God of the Television Kitchen, a.k.a. Ainsley Harriott (Who I have met – whole other story, that one).  Not pilfered from his book, I remembered it from when I was channel hopping and he was cooking.  Which goes to show how fecking easy it is. 

Su-Su-Sushi 

Ingredients: 

Cooked Sushi Rice (let it go cold)

Cucumber (quartered long ways)

Raw Tuna or Smoked Salmon (Make sure the Tuna is suitable for Sushi.  Ask your Fish-man, or monger or whatever his name is)

Wasabi Paste (this stuff looks like mouldy toothpaste but tastes well nice, though hot)

Seaweed Roll 

To Serve: 

Pickled Ginger

Dipping Sauce (To Make:  Mix together 3 tablespoons of Sake, 4 tablespoons of Dark Soy Sauce, and 1 teaspoon of brown sugar.  You can use Cooking Sherry if you’ve drunk all the, I mean if you don’t have any Sake.  Hic.)

FYI: You can get any of the ingredients in a Chinese Supermarket, or any good supermarket.  I know Waitrose stock it all.

Instructions: 

1.        Lay seaweed sheets onto a board.

2.       Spoon the cold rice in a thick line down the middle of the sheet.

3.       Add some Wasabi paste in a line down the middle of that, and then spread out.  Don’t use too much as the flavour may overpower the fish.

4.       Arrange the fish on the Wasabi strip, and also the cucumber.

5.       Carefully wrap up the whole thing like a Swiss roll, until it resembles something like a cigar.

6.       Chop into bite-sized pieces.

7.       Put dipping sauce into a small bowl on a plate, and arrange the sushi around it.  Decorate with the ginger.

8.       Eat.  Even I can make this stuff.

Temper-Tempura 

Ingredients: 

1 Red Pepper

1 Courgette

1 Sweet Potato

Chestnut Mushrooms

Large Prawns

Corn Flour

2 Egg Whites

4 Tablespoons of ICE COLD Water (the ICE COLD bit is very important, although I can’t remember why Ainsley said so.  You’ll have to trust me on that one) 

Instructions: 

1        Chop all the vegetables into chunky pieces.

2        Whisk egg whites and add the water.

3        Beat the egg whites into a stiff froth.  Having an electric mixer is so handy although I broke mine so I just have an arm ache.

4        Put a large pan of vegetable oil onto the heat.

5        Put some corn flour into a large bowl, and toss the chopped vegetables in it until they are completely covered.  Hee!  I said toss!  Sorry...

6        Transfer the floured vegetables to the egg whites and coat again, then add them to the oil and fry until golden brown.

7         Only add them a couple at a time, so they don’t all stick together.

8         Drain the excessive oil from them on kitchen paper.

9         Eat! 

Next issue we will be pinching recipes from that mad Nigella Bites bird, who I haven’t met but can say that I am frightened of in a “that woman’s completely MAD!” way.   

(Note: Out of interest, what the hell of a surname is BITES, anyway?  Smith comes from ‘blacksmith’, Thatcher comes from ‘roof thatcher’, Carpenter comes from, well duh, but BITES?)

(Further note: Have just been informed that her surname is Lawson, and the bites part is the title of her show.  Oh.  Out of interest, what the hell of a name for a television show is NIGELLA BITES, anyway?  Come to think of it, what the hell of a name is Nigella?)

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