Smoked Salmon Maki Rolls with Cucumber and Wasabi Cream Cheese

Smoked Salmon Maki Rolls with Cucumber and Wasabi Cream Cheese

from Max Hansen and Suzanne Goldensen's Smoked Salmon

Ingredients:

2 cups Japanese short-grain rice
2 1/2 cups water
2 tablespoons sushi rice vinegar (which is slightly sweetened)

Wasabi Cream Cheese:

1 tablespoon wasabi powder
4 ounces Philadelphia Neufchâtel Cream Cheese, at room temperature
1 tablespoon extra-strength soy sauce

3 sheets nori
1/4 pound sliced smoked salmon, julienned
1/2 European cucumber, peeled, halved, seeded, and julienned
1 Hass avocado, halved, pitted, peeled, and cut lengthwise into 1/4-inch-thick slices
2 scallions, white sections only, cut on the diagonal into 3/4-inch-thick slices
1 tablespoon sesame seeds, lightly toasted
Wasabi paste for serving (optional)
Pickled ginger for serving (optional)
Soy sauce for serving (optional)

Serves 6

This and many other wonderful
recipes may be found in
Smoked Salmon
from Chronicle Books

Maki-sushi is a seaweed-encased roll of sushi rice and a filling, such as avocado or tuna, that is cut and served in short cylinders. A number of Japanese ingredients are used in this adaptation of that traditional sushi form. Wasabi is a type of Asian horseradish. It comes in powder form, which is mixed with water to make a powerful (horseradish-like) green paste, and as a paste in tubes. A little wasabi goes a long way. Nori, paper-thin sheets of dried seaweed, comes in uniform square sheets. Store the sheets in a tin at room temperature to preserve their crispness and to keep them from breaking. Thinly sliced, pale pink pickled ginger in liquid is packed in tubs or plastic sacks. The Japanese use a short-grain rice with a high starch content to make sushi. The starch, which makes the rice sticky, helps hold these rolls together. I use House of Tang Thick and Rich Soy Sauce in this recipe. It is more flavorful and yet less salty than common soy sauce. Look for these ingredients, as well as the bamboo mat used for rolling the sushi, at Japanese markets.

To make the sushi rice: In a saucepan, combine the rice and water and let soak for 30 minutes. Place over high heat and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce the heat to medium, and cook until the rice has absorbed most of the water, 8 to 12 minutes. Reduce the heat to the lowest possible setting and cook until the water is completely absorbed but the rice is still moist, about 5 minutes more. Remove from the heat, mix in the vinegar, and let cool completely before using.

To make the wasabi cream cheese: Put the wasabi powder in a very small bowl. Add a few drops of water, barely wetting the powder Let sit for 5 minutes. In a medium bowl, using a wooden spoon, mix together the cream cheese, wasabi paste, and soy sauce until well blended. To assemble: Lay a sheet of nori on a sushi mat. Cover three-fourths of the nori with a 1/4-inch-thick layer of rice, leaving the top 1 inch exposed. Using a metal icing spatula or rubber spatula, spread ito 2 tablespoons of the wasabi cream cheese in a horizontal 1/2-inch-wide strip along the center of the rice. Cover the wasabi with one-third of the smoked salmon strips. Place one-third of the cucumber, avocado, and scallions alongside the salmon and, using your fingers, pinch the fillings together so that they will produce a tight core inside the rice when rolled. (The tighter the filling ingredients are before rolling the sushi, the better the end result.) Moisten the exposed edge of the nori with a few drops of water and, using the mat, roll up to form a cylinder. Remove the mat. Using a sharp knife, trim the ends neatly, cutting off about 1/4 inch from each end. Then cut the cylinder into 6 equal pieces. Repeat with the remaining 2 sheets of nori, rice, and fillings.

To serve: Spinkle the cut top edges of the sushi with sesame seeds, and place them on a lacquered wooden tray or other Japanese-inspired serving piece. Serve with wasabi paste, pickled ginger, and soy sauce, if desired.