If you’ve ever needed to get people who’re not into veggies to eat them, then it’s a good idea to disguise them as something else. Haha 😆 😛
This is particularly true if you’re entertaining people who aren’t particular fans of vegan fare. So, to step up to the challenge, one solution is to make your veggies look like something familiar, but popular, like 🍱 sushi. Haha, yes, you can make vegan sushi in the normal way with nori, rice and vegetables, but you can also use everyday veggies and present them in a manner that tricks the mind into thinking that they’re something else ( promise that you can).
This fake sushi dish is easy to prepare, using ingredients you probably already have in your fridge and grocery cupboard. Also, it’s not complicated at all, although it’s good to dice and slice everything beforehand so that you’ve got everything ready when you start rolling them up. Yum 😋
Veggie sushi makes a fabulous starter if you’re entertaining and I promise you that compliments will flow when you present this dish, people seem to enjoy the novelty and appreciate the effort you’ve put in. I’ve even managed to get kids who normally avoid veggies to ask for seconds, really!
Ingredients
_1 carrot 🥕
_1 avocado 🥑
_4 mini cucumbers 🥒
_ 4 mini bell peppers 🫑
_ A few mixed salad leaves. I used pea shoots, frilly lettuce and basil 🌿 leaves
_ handful of roasted peanuts 🥜
_sesame seeds for sprinkling (optional)
_2 small mushrooms 🍄 of your choice (optional) (you can use anything else that you have on hand the could be added in)
_ A good quality of soy sauce for serving, along with wasabi and pickled ginger.
Method
Slice the peppers 🫑 and deseed the resulting rings.
Use a vegetable peeler to peel thin slices of cucumber and carrot
Julienne the peels of 🥕 carrot and cut into pieces of about 2 cm
Slice the avocado 🥑 and cut the slices in pieces of about 2cm by 0.5cm
Finely dice a combination of salad leaves 🥬
Chop the nuts
You need to aim for sticks of vegetables that are about 2cm in length and nice and thin.
Place one cucumber slice on a cutting board and add a little of the diced salad leaves. Add two carrot sticks, a stick of mushroom and a piece of avocado. Add a few chopped nuts on top of the avocado ( they should adhere to the avo). Start rolling the cucumber from the stuffed end. Once rolled secure using a pepper ring.
Continue in this way until you’ve used up all the ingredients, allowing about 6-8 “sushi-pieces” per person.
Assemble the “sushi” on a suitable plate and sprinkle with sesame seeds and additional chopped nuts (add finely diced salad leaves as well if you like). Serve with a sushi-sized bowl of soya sauce, a little wasabi and a few slices of pickled ginger.
PS: don’t forget the chop sticks
Images and videos are mine shot using an iPad and manipulated using PicCollage and Video Shop