Square sushi

4 big rolls, vegan
This is a much chunkier sushi and included it so I could illustrate the use of a sushi mat to create different shapes. You could use any of the fillings in this chapter if you don't want to use the ones I have used here
Ingredients 1 roasted red pepper 200g (1 cup) sprouting broccoli 1 roasted sweet potato 8 button mushrooms ½ Cucumber 20ml (1 tbsp) rice vinegar ½ teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon sugar 1 batch sushi rice 4 sheets nori seaweed
	First of all prepare your mushrooms, peppers and sweet potato. Bring a pan of water to the boil, season with plenty of salt and cook the broccoli for 4 minutes. Cool under cold running water and drain. Make a cucumber pickle by cutting the cucumber into thin strips and mixing it with the rice vinegar, sugar and salt.
	Prepare a batch of sushi rice. Place a sheet of nori on your sushi mat. Using your fingers put sushi rice on the nori until it has reached ¾ of the way up the sheet. Don't forget to have some warm water standing by to rinse your fingers. Place you fillngs on the rice and get ready to roll. If you want to simplify this sushi just use fewer fillings.
	Roll the sushi with the mat trying to keep the fillings together and in the centre with your fingertips as best you can.
	Square off the sushi by pushing down on the sushi as well as pinching the sides. The mat will more or less do this for you. The picture illustrates clearly how it should look.
	If you roll your sushi with warm rice when the sushi cools it will firmly hold it's square shape. Cut with a sharp knife and serve with soy sauce, wasabe and pickled ginger.

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Nori seaweed is used for wrapping around rice to create nori sushi but has many other uses. It is dry and made in a similar way to paper - but using seaweed. You will find it in large sheets in most Asian grocers. Nori seaweed is high in fibre, vitamins, protein and minerals. It provides calcium and iron and contains other important trace minerals and is traditionally eaten to strengthen the circulatory system and help lower cholesterol.
Rice wine vinegar or rice vinegar is made from fermented rice or rice wine. The Japanese variety is colourless to light yellow and slightly milder and less acidic than Western varieties of wine vinegar. You can use Clear Chinese rice vinegar instead. On many occasions, when I have run out of rice vinegar, I have used white wine vinegar.
Wasabi is a Japanese horseradish with a strong, hot flavour that doesn't leave an afterburn in the mouth. A bit like snuff it can freeze your brain if you take to much - not literally! It can be bought in powder form, in which case you mix it with a little water to form a green paste, or pre mixed in a tube. Use whichever you prefer - the tubed stuff is more convenient. Whenever you serve sushi serve some of this as well along with some pickled ginger and soy sauce.
Pickled ginger is always served with sushi and is meant to be used as mouth cleanser inbetween each bite of sushi. Eating it altogether with the wasabe and soy sauce is great though. It can be found in most Asian stores and is sometimes coloured pink.
A Sushi mat is a device for rolling sushi. It is usually made from bamboo and they are very cheap to buy. Sushi can be rolled without it but but some things like spinach or delicate things like egg rolls can't. If you can't find one locally buy one online.