Makes 3 rolls (24 pieces)




Thick nori rolls normally contain 5 ingredients with contrasting colours, all wrapped up in a whole sheet of nori. A little difficult to eat, but a beautiful party dish.

INGREDIENTS:


1 quantity vinegared rice
3 sheets nori seaweed
1 sushi rolling mat

Hand vinegar:
4 tablespoons Japanese rice vinegar
250 ml water

Fillings:
9-12 uncooked king prawn tails, unpeeled
4 eggs
4 tablespoons sugar
250 g spinach
3 ½ tablespoons Japanese soy sauce (shoyu)
20 g dried gourd (kanpyo) or 1 carrot, cut into 5 mm square shreds
5-6 dried shiitake mushrooms
1 tablespoon mirin or sweet sherry
Salt

To serve:
Pickled ginger
Japanese soy sauce (shoyu)

HOW TO MAKE:

1. Make the vinegared rice. Mix the hand vinegar ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
2. Skewer a cocktail stick through each prawn from head to tail to prevent curling while cooking. Blanch in boiling water for 3 minutes until firm and pink. Immediately plunge into cold water and drain. Remove and discard the cocktail sticks, shells and dark back vein.
3. Using the eggs, 2 tablespoons of the sugar and a pinch of salt, make an omelette . Let cool, then cut lengthways into 1 cm square sticks.
4. Blanch the spinach in lightly salted water for 1 minute. Plunge into cold water. Drain and pat dry with kitchen paper. Sprinkle with 2 teaspoons soy sauce and set aside.
If using kanpyo, rub it with salt and a little water, then soak in water for 10 minutes and drain. Cut into 20 cm lengths. 5. Soak the shiitake in warm water for 30 minutes, then drain, retaining the soaking water. Cut the shiitake into 5 cm strips. Put 250 ml of the soaking liquid in a small saucepan with 3 tablespoons soy sauce, 2 tablespoons of the sugar and the mirin or sherry. Bring to the boil. Add the kanpyo or carrot shreds and shiitake strips. Simmer over a low heat for 15 minutes. Let cool in the liquid and set aside.
6. Toast the nori and put, crossways, one whole sheet at a time, on a sushi rolling mat, follow the method how to roll sushi. Dip your hands in the hand vinegar. Take one sixth of the rice and squeeze it between your hands into a firm ball. Put the rice ball on one side of the nori sheet in the centre and, using wet fingers, spread evenly over the half side of nori, leaving about 3 cm margin on the far side. Repeat this once more to fill the other half. The rice layer should be fairly thick – add extra rice if necessary.
7. Arrange 3-4 prawns in a row across the rice about 5 cm from the front edge. Add a row of omelette strips and a row of spinach on top of the prawns. Add a row of kanpyo or carrot and a row of shiitake on top, so that all 5 ingredients are piled in the centre of the rice,like logs of timber. Each roll should use one-third of each ingredient.
8. Pick up the mat from the near side and, keeping all the ingredients in the centre, roll the mat as you follow the steps how to make a sushi roll. Remove the mat and put the roll on a plate, join side down. Repeat to make 2 more rolls.
9. Cut each roll into 8 and serve with little dishes of soy sauce and pickled ginger.