(A Little Less Faux) Sushi

There is this amazing raw food restaurant in Nelson called Raw Freshing. The owner makes hemp and walnut crust pizzas, truffles and macaroons – all raw, of course. She apparently teaches courses, too, which I think would be fun. When we were on our honeymoon, I picked up the Raw “un-cookbook” by Charlie Trotter and Roxanne Klein. It is probably the most sophisticated cookbook I own, and there is no actual cooking involved. The photos are absolutely gorgeous. In a flurry of zeal for the raw food philosophy, I attempted to make the bleeding heart radish ravioli with yellow tomato sauce and the heirloom tomato soup with olives and shaved fennel. Just flipping through the book makes me salivate.

I’m getting distracted (*closes book*). I was going to blog about the sushi that Chantale makes at Raw Freshing, using sprouts instead of rice. I’m not a vegan but I do love my vegetables and this sushi tastes like… sunshine and laughter rolled up tightly in nori and sliced up. Too much? I looked around on the internet and found that it is really easy to make. Easier than normal sushi (but slightly harder than candy sushi). Today I’m making it (this will be the third time). Warning: The integrity of the ‘rawness’ of this recipe is questionable because I make substitutions in a few places, but I’ve made a note of them.

First you have to make the pecan pate:

Throw 2 cups of pecans in a food processor and let it do it’s thing. When they’re nice and small, add in half a red onion, minced, a big handful of parsley, the juice of half a lemon, and 1 clove garlic (chopped, or 1 tsp powdered if that’s what you’ve got), 2 tsp nama shoyu (this is a raw organic unpasteurized soy sauce but we couldn’t find it in town so we ended up buying an organic shoyu, which is just the japanese name for soy sauce, but if you want it to be fully raw, you can buy nama shoyu here) and 2 tsp cold pressed sesame oil.

Mix 1 tbs of miso with a pinch of cayenne and spread a layer of this paste of a sheet of untoasted nori leaving an inch or so at the bottom edge and 2 inches at the top (toasted nori isn’t raw but it is readily available so sometimes I just use it instead). Then cover it with a handful of sprouts (I used a mixture of regular sandwich type sprouts and daikon) and layer on whatever else you want: sliced red bell pepper, avocado, cucumber (of course I would add cucumber!), and I think mango is essential here. Then add an even amount of the pecan pate in a line on top of the veggies.

Roll it up, and voila! You could serve it as is but I like to cut them into about six pieces with a super sharp knife. Serve it with shoyu and, if you want, wasabi (I don’t want).

I asked Ryan what he thought it tasted like and he said “Dirt, but the most flavorful dirt ever. Like Amazonian dirt from an orchard that used to be a coffee plantation, and you’re scooping it up with your hands and there’s berries in it…”

A compliment? I’m still trying to decipher. But he assured me that he loves it, and his “mmm’s” did too.

So there you have it: raw sushi that, tastewise, is somewhere on the scale between Amazonian dirt and laughter.