Once upon a time I discovered an obscure page on the internet which had a decorative roll I’ve never seen. Though it was marketing kiwi fruit, they had put it in a sushi roll and it had a peculiar pattern. Further searching, I found a japanese website on decorative sushi and I discovered the name of that roll: the 4-seas roll. Fast forward to the recent past (and plenty of practice with the ‘4-seas’) I took a gander in Amazon, and came across multiple books which mostly were authored by the same chef as from the website.
I’ve been meaning to use my copy of The Encyclopedia of Sushi Rolls for a while now, and while it is within my abilities to do some of the decorative ones I do find them rather finicky and requiring peculiar ingredients (or some improvisation). The monsen is – according to the book – an old style gold coin used in Japan. I pretty much followed the method to the book but I’m no pâtissier with the gram amounts of rice nor do I have access to common japanese herbs (I made do with sorrel, which I thought was refreshing.)
Monsen Makizushi
Lunch contents: Monsen makizushi garnished with rocket and parsley, prawn ‘springroll’.
I think I’ll need to use an egg-yolk only soboro next time, or just find better quality eggs!
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