My girlfriend and I have completely different work schedules for Valentine’s Day, so I wanted to have something special for her to come home to. She’s never been able to eat sushi because she hates seafood, but she loves the concept and the presentation, so I thought some dessert sushi might be fun.
However, I have no idea how to make it. I’ve heard things about boiling rice in coconut milk, and that sounds like a good start, but I don’t really know where to go from there. Actually, I’m not very good at rice cooking in general, so I think I’m going to borrow a friend’s rice cooker… would it be ok to use coconut milk in that? What about chocolate milk? Anything else I could use to give the rice a sweet flavor?
I’m hoping not to have to resort to the Twinky recipe, and while cute, I’m looking for something a little more sophisticated than rice krispy treats wrapped in fruit-by-the-foot. Bonus points for anything using chocolate.
There’s something about sweet sushi that makes my stomach turn. Why don’t you try something like turkey (well, yes, you’d probably have to cook it). Or maybe she hasn’t tried all the different kinds of “seafood” there are. Maybe eel would appeal to her. Or squid? Did she have some kind of traumatic experience at sea, or is it just fish? You could try California roll, which is pseudo sushi, but you can replace the (usually) fake crab with something with a similar texture. And is it only seafood? What about fresh-water fish?
I saw that one. I probably wouldn’t go the gummi-and-candy route, but using cake is a good idea.
Something I forgot to ask:
does anyone know of any substitutes for nori (seaweed paper) that I could use? The sweeter the better, but really, anything that doesn’t come from the sea would be great.
You could always try rice paper - it’s likely sold in a specialty cooking store, and is usually used for the base for some sticky sweets. Not to be confused with the rice paper used for Vietnamese rice paper rolls, although that’s pretty tasteless, and it might work OK in a push.
I think cooking the rice using sweetened coconut milk, or as per rice pudding, could be good - then filled with fresh fruit to get the look of the sushi (will also cut the sweetness of the rice). Sliced melon (watermelon, rockmelon etc) would work very well as sashimi, and you can make little piles of the rice and cover with thin slices of fruit as well.
hmmm, interesting. I was considering making “Chocolate Paper” as described to me by someone on LJ, but it seems really, really complicated. I’ll probably buy this rice paper stuff as a backup for if the chocolate doesn’t work out.
I went out and bought a bunch of fruit today: pears, blackberries, blood oranges, bananas, strawberries, raspberries, pink lady apples, pineapples, and nectarines. I also have some cream cheese frosting somewhere around here, and probably some mandarin oranges too. I was planning on making a chocolate sauce and probably a caramel sauce for dipping.
Anyone have ideas on some good combinations using these ingredients? I’ve only really thought of one so far: I’m thinking I’ll do a fried banana rolled up by itself or maybe with some cream cheese frosting and sprinkle it with cinnamon sugar.
edit: ooh, I forgot to mention that for another method of wrapping I might use some fruit leather (not to be confused with fruit-by-the-foot). I think that would be cool for making stuff to resemble hand rolls… or whatever kind it is that’s just a chunk of rice with a piece of fish and a piece of nori wrapped around both.
How about a dessert pizza? I watched an episode of Paula Deen’s show and she used a boxed cookie mix, sweetened cream cheese, various fresh fruits and a jam glaze. It looked pretty impressive, yet easy to do. Just go to www.foodtv.com and look for Paula Deen’s show for the correct episode.
Tamago (egg) sushi is usually pretty sweet and is eaten traditionally as a dessert by Japanese sushi enthusiasts. If you want something more creative, I think the posts above me have some good links.
