If what you need, right now, is a swift, bread-less, slow carb solution for lunch and sunny suppers, I have the solution. Bring on the nori-wraps. You should skip right to the bottom for some explanation of how a sheet of dried seaweed is a simple substitution for wraps and sandwiches, without the faff of having to pulverise a head of cauliflower with half a cup of ground almonds and hope you can make it stick back together.
If you’d like some explanation of ‘where in the heck have you been’, I offer you the below simple pop quiz.
Have I been
a) Sunning it up in Bali, on my first proper overseas jaunt in two years, sipping pink drinks, by watermelon streaked skies, putting my three years of high school Indonesian into practice and eating my body weight in sambal?
b) Stranded in Bali for an additional eight days after a volcano spewed a cloud of ash, rendering some airlines unable to fly and leaving us to curse Virgin Australia, while casting around for suitable villa accommodation for a two year old who thinks he can swim (but patently can’t)?
c) Supervising the renovations of a #kitchenofdreams while a builder nearly severs two of his fingers, while the adage of my favourite television show Grand Designs comes true (there will always be a problem with the windows and doors) and we do the washing up from a tap in the driveway?
d) Beavering away converting Poppyseed to Pumpkin into an app that’s now available for purchase on the iTunes App store? (You can buy it here).
e) Felled by the souvenir of an ear infection from Bali water that made its way into the mastoid bone behind my ear and left me high on endone in hospital on IV antibiotics and on a delightfully refreshing saline drip and contemplating that a day on my own in air conditioned comfort of a hospital is a different kind of holiday?
f) All of the above.
With all of that in mind, I’d like to present to you one of the saviours of our ‘camping in the lounge room’ suppers.
It can be very tempting when busy/ renovating/ harried to exist on take away sushi. Except for the rice. Too much rice doesn’t do great things for me. So this, is my simple solution. Just leave it out. Take a rectangular sheet of nori. You can buy these in the Japanese or Asian section of your supermarket and once opened, they keep well in the fridge. Top it with salad leaves, good quality tuna in a can that’s been drained, salmon sashimi or drained sardines (the draining is important). If you want some extra bulk you can add some microwave cooked quinoa. To stop the quinoa grains from errantly spilling out the bottom of your wrap, bind it with avocado smash, beetroot hummus or sweet potato mash.
Sprinkle some seeds over the top and add some pickled ginger for piquancy. Done.
We’ll often make up DIY handroll platters for dinner now. A few extra vegetables in the middle of the table (steamed sweet potato batons, broccolini or fresh cucumber sticks are all sound) as well as some sliced avocado is all you need.
Or If I feel like getting a little fancier with it, I’ll make up free-form rice-less sushi bowls and drizzle everything with a shiro-miso dressing.
This isn’t so much as a recipe, as a revelation I had a while ago. Using nori sheets as a substitute for flatbreads works with a variety of toppings-not just those with a Japanese accent. Think hummus, tuna and rocket, or barbecued chicken, sweet potato mash and cucumber. The nori adds both structure for wrapping and a great layer of umami flavouring. The key is to construct them just before you eat them, to maximise the delicious brittle crackle on the edge of the roll.
As you were.
Posts and normal broadcasting from #kitchenofdreams coming soon. I promise.
Nori Wraps
Serves 1
Ingredients
1 sheet of nori paper
2 tbsp cooked quinoa, plus 1 tbsp of something to bind (beetroot dip or sweet potato mash works well, or 1/4 avocado smashed)
1/4 avocado, sliced
Vegetables of your choice (try stems of lightly steamed broccolini, or a handful of rocket)
1 small tin of cooked tuna, well drained, or 1 tin of sardines in oil, well drained, or 40 g of sashimi grade salmon
Pickled ginger to taste
Method
1) Lay out your sheet of nori on a diagonal.
2) Top with toppings, leaving the top 1/3 of the wrap empty.3) Turn up the bottom and swaddle the two sides, creating a rustic handroll shape (a little like a bouquet of flowers)
4) Eat quickly before the wrapper gets soggy.
What a great idea for a low carb wrap! That’s a nice change from using the usual lettuce leaves for wrapping 🙂
Poor you, quite an adventurous past few weeks! But at least a good vacation was involved. Pinned this: it will be happening in my kitchen very soon!