maple•spice: Miso-Ginger Glazed Roasted Carrot and Toasted Sesame Sushi

Miso-Ginger Glazed Roasted Carrot and Toasted Sesame Sushi - vegan and gluten-free recipe

I really love sushi, it's one of those foods I don't eat often but find I just get a massive craving for at times. Like intense craving, worse than chocolate! Usually I just make my standard sushi - the Avocado, Carrot and Lime Maki Rolls - as I love them and when that craving hits I certainly do not want to risk experimenting with a new recipe! But then I saw this Rick Stein recipe on BBC Good Food for Grilled Miso Salmon and was very intrigued by the glaze he put on the salmon. Brown rice miso, soy sauce, balsamic vinegar and smoked paprika - I never would have thought of putting balsamic vinegar and paprika in a Japanese inspired dish and had to try this right away. Initially I was going to just swap the salmon with tofu - the obvious vegan substitution, but it eventual ended up as this....Miso-ginger glazed roasted carrot and toasted sesame sushi. Ah, the complexities of recipe development!

It turned out incredible! I really love these, that glaze is amazing, the balsamic and smoked paprika just work so well (and for the record it would make an awesome glaze for grilled tofu!) I made a couple little changes however. I added some ginger as it goes great with carrot and sushi and a teaspoon of Sweet Freedom syrup (vegan honey) but you can use agave or any other type of sweetener, I felt it helped balance the tartness of the vinegar. The carrot is roasted so they are nice and tender and then I added some toasted sesame seeds because they're awesome. Since the filling here has so much flavour you almost don't even need a dip with these but I just can't have sushi rolls without one. I kept it traditional with just some wasabi and soy sauce, I prepare the wasabi then whisk it into the soy sauce. Probably not traditional but I like an even flavour of wasabi. Some toasted sesame oil would work well in the dip as well.

Please note: I have tagged this recipe as gluten-free as all the products I used were gluten-free but please check your product ingredient lists to be sure :-)

Miso-Ginger Glazed Roasted Carrot & Toasted Sesame Sushi

Yields about 12 sushi rolls

For the Miso-Ginger Glazed Roasted Carrots:

1 large carrot sliced into matchstick sizes (not too thin though)

½ tsp peanut oil

½ tsp finely grated ginger

2 tsp brown rice miso paste

2 tsp balsamic vinegar

2 tsp soy sauce (use tamari for gluten-free)

1 tsp Sweet Freedom syrup or other vegan syrup sweetener

¼ tsp smoked paprika

For the Sushi Rice:

125g sushi rice

250ml water

1 Tbsp rice vinegar

1/2 Tbsp mirin

1 tsp caster sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 sheets toasted nori

4 tsp sesame seeds

• Wasabi and Soy Sauce to serve

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F. Toss the carrots with the peanut oil and place in a roasting tin.

Roast for 10 minutes, tossing once. They should be slightly softer now. I pre-roast them a bit before adding the glaze so that the glaze doesn't burn.

Whisk together the miso, balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, syrup, smoked paprika and ginger.

Add the glaze to the carrots, mixing well.

Pop it back in the oven and roast for another 10 minutes or until glazed and the carrots are tender. Transfer the carrots to a plate to let cool.

Toast the seeds:

Place the seeds in a dry frying pan and gently toast until lightly golden.

Transfer to a plate and allow to cool.

Make the rice:

Note: this may sound like a cop out but I suggest you follow the instructions on cooking the rice on your package of sushi rice. Reason being every pack I have bought has had different instructions and I have found that even different hobs yield different results. I used to add much less water than this on my old hob but my new one is a lot stronger, even on the lowest setting and found I needed to add more water. So I'm afraid it's a case of finding which rice works with your hob and pan to get perfect sushi rice. This is what I do however....

Place the rice and water in a saucepan and put lid on. Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Turn off heat and let sit for 15 minutes, do not lift lid. Whisk together the rice vinegar, mirin, sugar and salt until all dissolved. Tip rice into a large bowl and pour the dressing over then use a rubber spatula and fold the dressing in until rice is room temperature and texture changes to thick and sticky, be gentle as you don't want to crush the grains.

Place the nori onto a bamboo sushi rolling mat, shiny side down. Keep a bowl of cold water mixed with some rice vinegar nearby. Wet your hands in this. Place half the rice onto the mat leaving about an inch bare at the other end.

Gently pat down with damp hands until evenly spread out then sprinkle with the toasted sesame seeds and lay the carrots out in the bottom 3rd closest to you.

♥

Lightly dampen the edge of the nori that has no rice on it then roll up using the bamboo mat. Repeat with the other sheet of nori then slice and serve with soy sauce and wasabi.