Sushi Making

Hi everyone! I thought I'd share another recipe I've been loving recently. As you know I absolutely love sushi but this was my first attempt at making it myself, it's much easier than I expected so let me know if you give this a try :)

Ingredients:

250g of sushi rice

4 tbsp rice vinegar

3 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

Salmon

Cucumber

Crab sticks

Cooked prawns

Sushi nori sheets

Wasabi paste and Soy sauce to taste

Method:

Cooking the rice is the key step in making sushi, it must be sticky enough to hold everything together, but not be allowed to turn into a sticky dough. Firstly, the rice must be thoroughly washed and drained. Once this is done there are three steps to follow; soaking, boiling and resting. Different people use different times for each step; I use about 500ml water to 250g of rice, leave this to soak for 20 minutes, then bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes and finally allow to stand for 10 minutes. The remaining water should then be drained and the rice left to cool. In the meantime, gently heat the rice vinegar, sugar and salt in a small saucepan until the sugar dissolves - and then mix into the rice.

Everything else is simplicity itself – although it sometimes gets quite messy.

Place you sushi nori (seaweed sheet) on a bamboo mat and cover in a thin layer of rice. I use the back of a spoon to spread the rice out – I’m told you should use your fingers, but the rice is so sticky this inevitably makes a real mess. As shown here leave a half inch gap at the end of the sushi nori that you can dampen with water and use for sealing once you have rolled your sushi. The rolling itself is surprisingly simple.

The joy of making your own sushi is that you can make them to match your taste. For California Rolls, you use mayonnaise, tiger prawns, crabsticks and avocado. But here I’ve used a mixture of Smoked Salmon, crabsticks, cucumber and prawns. If you want to add bite to your sushi then add a little to taste.

Other than the rice, which can be a little fiddly to get right, this a simple (as well as being healthy) recipe.

Let me know if you try out this recipe and what you think :)

Tam x

Recipes: Chinese Yakisoba Stir Fry

Hi everyone! I thought I'd share another recipe I've been loving recently. I've been trying to eat a lot of protein and vegetables at the moment but it's sometimes difficult to eat tasty food that's also good for you but this is one of my go-to recipes that delivers on nutrition and flavour. I hope you enjoy :)

Ingredients (for 4 servings):

2 tablespoons of canola oil

1 tablespoon of sesame oil

2 skinless chicken breast fillets, cut into chunks

2 cloves of garlic

2 tablespoons of Asian-style chilli paste (you can leave this out if you don't like spicy food)

Soy sauce to taste

Half a medium head of cabbage

1 onion

2 carrots, cut into matchsticks

2 pounds of cooked yakisoba noodles

Pickled ginger to taste

Method:

Heat 2 tablespoons of canola oil and 1 tablespoon of sesame oil in a large skillet or frying pan over medium to high heat. Put the chicken and chopped garlic into the pan and fry for about a minute. Stir in the chilli paste and continue to cook for a further 3 to 4 minutes, or until the chicken has browned. Add the soy sauce and simmer for 2 minutes. Finally, set aside the chicken mixture into a bowl. In the hot pan, stir in the chopped cabbage, onion and carrots until the cabbage has wilted and reduced in volume. Put the chicken mixture back into the pan with the cabbage, add the noodles and cook until the noodles are tender and the chicken is completely cooked. Serve immedietly and garnish with the pickled ginger.

Let me know if you try out this recipe and what you think :)

Tam x

Recipes: Spanish Fish Stew

Hello everyone :) I thought I'd post something a bit different today and share with you one of the recipes I've been loving lately. If you're trying to be healthy this is a lovely meal to have with salad or you could serve it with some crunchy ciabatta bread. Of course you can switch up the ingredients to make it less spicy (take out the paprika and cayenne pepper) or replace with chicken if you don't like fish.

Ingredients (for 4 servings):

A handful of parsley

2 cloves of garlic

Juice of 1 lemon (or bottled lemon juice if you don't have and lemons)

3 tbsp of olive oil

1 onion, chopped

500g of floury potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes

1tsp of paprika

A pinch of cayenne pepper

A tin of chopped tomatoes (Italian tomatoes are the best)

1 fish stock cube

A tin of chickpeas

200g of peeled, raw king prawns

500g of any white fish chunks of your choice (I use cod or basa)

Method:

Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a large pan and throw in the onion and potato. Cover for 5 minutes until the onion has softened, then add the remaining oil, garlic and spices and leave to simmer for 2 minutes. Pour in the lemon juice, tin of tomatoes, half a can of water and crumble in the stock cube. Season with a little salt, then cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes until the potatoes are soft. Stir in the prawns and chickpeas and place the chunks of fish in the pan so that they are covered by the sauce. Reduce the heat, place the lid back on and cook for around 8 minutes, stirring once or twice so that everything is heated evenly. Once the fish is cooked through, remove the heat and scatter with chopped parsley and serve!

Nutritional Information:

Per serving

328 kcals

39g protein

33g carbs

11g fat

2g sat fat

5g fibre

5g sugar

1.92g salt

I hope you liked this recipe and let me know if you try it yourself :)

Tam x