3 Reasons You Should Make One Large Bowl Of Sushi Rice Right Now
While I was making rice for Korean food last night, I had to suppress the urge, as always, to turn it into sushi rice. You could argue that sushi rice would go nicely with Korean food, but it's just kind of blasphemous, right? It's probably cause for an international incident. So now that the two pounds of bulgogi I marinated is finally finished, I'm going to town with my favorite non-sushi ways to use sushi rice. Of course our foolproof sushi rice recipe is a good place to start.
1. Tuna salad rice ball
Never say you can't teach an old dog new tricks. One foil pack of tuna (cans have gross tuna water in them, I've discovered), 1/3 cup Japanese mayo, 1 rib celery, finely chopped, salt, pepper, lemon juice. Tweak this to make it slightly Asian: add a quick drizzle of sesame oil, brief squirt of sriracha and tiny splash of soy sauce. Now pack it in a cylindrical rice ball mold (costing all of $6) and watch tuna salad sandwiches go blind with jealous rage.
2. Roe rice
A light, simple and healthy way to not have to swallow those dinosaur Omega-3 pills you're constantly encouraged to take. Simply load the fish eggs of your choice onto a bowl of rice, mix well, season with furikake (Japanese sesame-seaweed seasoning) and a squeeze of lemon and top with anything. I like a runny fried egg (but then again, who doesn't?)
3. Made-up sushi rolls
Get this: I once used chicken fingers to convince a picky eater to consume food in sushi format. It didn't progress a lot further than that, if you can imagine. However, broiled pork belly and yes, even my beloved bulgogi make really, really good sushi rolls if you're one of those nice "makes me scared about the future of humanity" folks who won't eat fish. I find myself getting more tolerant as I grow older.
And while this isn't an officially What To Eat For Lunch-sanctioned option, contributing editor Matt Rodbard knows a mean Spam musubi when he sees one. I'd hit that, depending on a number of inebriation-related conditions.
More rice for lunch on Food Republic: