What fuels your creative spark: Beauty? Quiet? Noise? Mess? Neatness? And when do you feel most like yourself: Alone? In groups? With friends or family?
These are all questions that guide me when I’m feeling slightly off. Which happens. There are days, weeks, months, when my internal barometer of fineness feels entirely tweaked. Like someone came along and shook everything up, forcing me to look at the world in a different way.
And in those moments, I do all I can to take a step back and ask myself the questions that bring me back to center. I also like to eat foods that ground me—savories that feel earthbound and steadying.
The heavy mineral content of sea veggies like nori and seeds like sesame help tremendously with this, as do an abundance of veggies. This sushi bowl offers it all. It’s packed with vibrant and hydrating veggies, alkalizing sea veggies and apple cider vinegar, the healthy fat of avocado and sesame seeds, and tons of spices to reignite any dulled spirits.
The bowl features shichimi togarashi—Japanese seven spice—a blend introduced to me by fellow blogger Jessica Fiorello when I was in New York this spring. Jessica said she’d basically had an IV feed of the stuff going over the past year, so obvi I had to try it myself. Like her, I’ve now taken to putting it on everything—eggs, sautéed greens, rice bowls, you name it, I’ve togarashi’d it.
Here’s a link to the one I bought, though you could easily put together a blend at home. Here’s some more info about it, from The Kitchn.
And of course, let us not forget the glory of ume plum vinegar. I’ve sung ume’s praises many times before, but it really gets to shine in this cucumber carrot salad with lime and toasted sesame oil. It’s so simple it’s a little addicting, and you can use the extra dressing from the salad on your sushi bowl, if you want.
This is a bowl you can riff on as much as you like—want cooked greens instead of raw? Sure! Radish instead of carrot? Absolutely. Ditch the avocado? WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU NOT WANT AVOCADO???
Sorry. I promise only to judge you a little bit if you come to my house and don’t want avocado. Like, maybe we’ll be able to get over it.
Enjoy your sushi bowls, my loves! Happy steaming, and grinding, and chopping, and whisking, and noshing. May all of it bring you back to center.
SUSHI BOWL WITH SESAME UME CUCUMBER SALAD & SHICHIMI TOGARASHI DRESSING.
Ingredients
Sushi Rice with Shichimi Togarashi Dressing
- 1 cup dry white jasmine rice but use any kind of rice you like!
- 2 cups vegetable stock or pure water for cooking the rice
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 4 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons shichimi togarashi spice mix (Japanese Seven Spice including poppy seeds, sesame seeds, hot red peppers like Sichuan or sansho, dried citrus peel, ginger, garlic, shiso, and nori; see notes above for sourcing or making your own)
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- 2 teaspoons agave nectar
Sesame Ume Cucumber Salad
- 1 cup thinly sliced cucumbers
- 1 cup carrot matchsticks 1-2 inches long
- 2 Tablespoons fresh lime juice
- 1 teaspoon ume plum vinegar
- 1/8 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
Sushi Bowl Fixings
- 4-6 pieces sheets of raw sushi nori cut or torn into small
- 2 cups chopped fresh leafy greens like tatsoi, chard, spinach, or kale
- 1 avocado sliced
- tahini to taste
- soy sauce to taste
Instructions
- Put 1 cup dry rice in a medium size pot with two cups water. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cook 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from heat once water has evaporated and rice is tender and fluffy, leaving lid on.
- While rice is cooking, in a separate bowl mix together sliced cucumbers, carrots, lime juice, ume, and sesame oil. Toss lightly and set aside.
- If you have a mortar and pestle and you want to throw in an extra flourish, use it to slightly crush the shichimi togarashi, releasing the flavors and oils. It’ll be fine to use it un-crushed, too. In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, apple cider vinegar, shichimi togarashi, sea salt, and agave until the liquids are fully incorporated.
- In a medium sized bowl, mix 2 cups of cooked rice with your shichimi togarashi dressing and sushi nori. Distribute amongst bowls and top with cucumber carrot salad, chopped greens, avocado, tahini, and a drizzle of soy sauce. An extra sprinkle of seeds never hurts.
