Author: Allison

Queen of the Tom Tom Roll

Post author By Allison
Post date May 21, 2008
12 Comments on Queen of the Tom Tom Roll

I haven’t the slightest idea how this roll got it’s name. I did a search for “Queen of the Tom Tom”, and the only results I got were my pictures of the roll on flickr, and the restaurant menu where the roll originated. To me, it sounds like the name of either a ship or a rock n’ roll band, but neither of those came up in my search so for all I know, it’s a made-up name! Not that I’m complaining. The roll is delicious!

We all know I love tempura shrimp, seeing how many tempura shrimp sushi recipes I have! And I have recently developed a slight (okay, more than slight) addiction to spicy mayonnaise (where have you been all my life?!?!) So put them together, add some cream cheese, avocado, cucumber, and tobiko, and oh baby you have got an awesome roll! Whoever thought this one up is a genius. 😀

This roll is originally from Tex Wasabi’s, a sushi and BBQ restaurant found in Northern California.

Ingredients

6 sheets nori
3 cups sumeshi
12 tempura shrimp
3 oz cream cheese
1 avocado
1 small cucumber
1 oz tobiko
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tbsp Sriracha sauce

Cooking Directions

Cook sushi rice.
Bake or fry tempura shrimp, according to instructions on the package.
Cut the avocado in half, discarding the pit.
Cut off the hard skin and discard.
Slice the avocado into thin sticks.
Mix the mayonnaise and Sriracha sauce.
Cut cucumber into sticks.
Roll the sushi, using a couple of tempura shrimp, cream cheese, avocado, cucumber, and the spicy mayo as your fillings.
Sprinkle some tobiko on top of each slice.
Enjoy!

Maki Recipes

Baja California Roll

I’ve lived in Southern California all my life. So you would think that I might have driven a few hours south to go party it up at Tiajuana or something. Nope. Never ever in my entire life have I crossed an international border! Kind of sad, if you think about it… all the different regional foods I’m missing out on. I rarely even go out of California! 🙁 Time for a road trip!

I have always wanted to travel, but even more so now that I have fallen in love with food! Vietnam, France, Japan, Italy, Mexico… those are just a few of the places I would love to visit! Of course, now that I have found out there is one of these in Baja California, all the more reason to visit! It might be a while before that happens, so meanwhile I’ll just live vicariously through my food. 😀

The California Roll is arguably one of the most popular types of sushi known to man. Both fish-lovers and people who are more than a little “ick” at the thought of eating raw fish love the California Roll. But if that’s the only type of roll you like, eating it all the time can get an itty bit boring. Taking the flavor a little bit south and adding Sriracha sauce to the roll really livens it up, and may just be my new favorite way to eat California Rolls! Or, if you want a different twist to your California Roll, you can try one of the four other types of California Rolls I have on Sushi Day: the New Zealand Roll, the American Roll, the Crazy California Roll and the Super California Roll.

Ingredients

6 sheets nori
3 cups sumeshi
1 cup imitation crab
1 avocado
1 cucumber
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tsp Sriracha sauce

Cooking Directions

Cook sushi rice.
Cut the avocado in half, discarding the pit.
Cut off the hard skin and discard.
Slice the avocado into thin sticks.
Mix the imitation crab, mayonnaise and Sriracha sauce.
Cut cucumber into sticks.
Roll the sushi, using the imitation crab mix, avocado and cucumber as your fillings.
Enjoy!

Tags avocado, Baja California Roll, California roll, cucumber, imitation crab, kamaboko, sriracha, surimi, sushi

Maki Recipes

Hummus Maki

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Back when I was still living at my parents’ house, my sister decided she liked hummus. So, of course, she had my parents go to Trader Joe’s and buy her some. At the time I tried some, and I hated it. I thought that was it for me and hummus.

A few months ago, Son and I went to Costco. Now, everyone knows that the best part about Costco (aside from the great prices and $1.50 hot dog and drink combo) are the samples! One of the samples they were offering that day was hummus. On a whim, I tried some, and it was really good! We ended up not buying any that day, which was disappointing.

Later that week, I went to my local farmer’s market. It’s a five-minute walk from my apartment, so it’s super easy for me to get there, as long as I can get up before noon on a Saturday morning! (Which, for me, is quite a feat indeed!) As I explored the different offerings, lo and behold, they had not one, but two hummus stands there! I tried a sample from one of the stands, and I was sold. Almost every week since then, I have been buying their garlic and chives hummus, along with some garlic and herb pita chips to go along with them. (Can you tell we like garlic? 😀 )

And then, a couple of weeks ago, I had a stroke of genius. Okay fine, so it wasn’t my stroke of genius, but I’ve looked everywhere and can’t for the life of me remember who told me about this. Anyways, the stroke of genius was… hummus in sushi! More specifically, red and orange bell peppers and hummus in sushi. Which is amazing. Er, amazingly delicious! If you like hummus, and bell peppers, I definitely recommend making this! It’s especially great for vegetarians (and I believe it’s also vegan, but that might depend on the type of hummus you use? I’m not entirely sure.) plus it’s not one of those bland, I’m-trying-to-make-something-for-vegetarians-but-failing-miserably dishes.

Recipe
Nutrition Info

Ingredients

6 sheets nori
3 cups sumeshi
1 cup hummus
2 bell peppers, any color

Cooking Directions

Cook sushi rice.
Wash bell peppers.
Remove stem, ribs, and seeds from the bell peppers.
Slice the bell peppers into strips.
Roll the sushi, using about a tablespoon of hummus and a few strips of bell pepper as your fillings.

Serving Size: 1 roll Hummus Maki

Calories: 153
Fat: 2g, 2% DV
Saturated Fat: 0g, 1% DV
Cholesterol: 0mg, 0% DV
Sodium: 587mg, 24% DV
Total Carbohydrates: 31g, 10% DV
Dietary Fiber: 3g, 11% DV
Sugars: 18g
Protein: 4g, 7% DV
Vitamin A: 40%
Vitamin C: 120%
Calcium: 1%
Iron: 6%
Magnesium: 4%
Potassium: 4%

Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. These values are only estimates based on the individual ingredients, and not meant to replace the advice of a medical professional.

More Pictures

Other Recipes

Spicy Hamachi Gunkan Maki

I love yellowtail. We all know that. You might also know that I love the mayonnaise mix that I used in the Maguro Karakuchi Spicy Tuna Roll. (I put it in tuna salad, and I’m seriously considering hard-boiling some eggs and putting it in egg salad!) So of course, I had to see what happened when I put both together! However, since I like to mix things up a little, I couldn’t do exactly the same roll, just with yellowtail instead of tuna! (Well, I could, but how interesting would that really be?) Lucky for me, I’ve got awesome-as-can-be readers. One of my awesome readers, Kevin, commented saying that he had made something similar to my Maguro Karakuchi Spicy Tuna, except he made it gunkan-style with the sauce on the top, instead of as a roll. Genius! Pure genius! Thus the natural thing for me to do is to steal… er… borrow his idea and make it with yellowtail!

It was delicious. I will be making it again. Kevin, you win the Awesome Sushi Day Reader Award! 😀

Ingredients

4 sheets nori
3 cups sumeshi
6 oz sashimi-grade yellowtail
1 cup mayonnaise
2 tbsp Sriracha sauce
1 oz tobiko
6 stalks green onion

Cooking Directions

Cook sushi rice.
Form a small ball of rice with your hands or use a round cookie cutter to make a small circular rice shape about 1â€³ tall and 2 inches in diameter.
Cut the nori into 2â€³ strips. Wrap a strip of nori around the circumference of each rice ball.
Wash the green onion, cut the long green stalks off of the white bulb-like things. Discard the white bulbs.
Chop the green onion.
Mix the mayonnaise, Sriracha sauce, tobiko and green onion.
Slice yellowtail into 1 cm diameter slices.
Curl each strip of yellowtail into a circle, fit on top of the rice into the nori.
Top the yellowtail with some of the mayonnaise mix.

Maki Recipes

Cinco de Mayo Roll

Okay, so technically this isn’t a very *Mexican* roll. But work with me here – it does use red pepper powder, and technically yellowtail is mostly found in Baja California (at least in North America), which is part of Mexico! Plus it’s all pretty and colorful, and today is May 5th! So there. 😀

Of course, neither of us really celebrates Cinco de Mayo. Neither Son nor myself are the least bit Hispanic, plus we don’t really party or drink at all. Not to mention I have school and he has to work, so Cinco de Mayo isn’t much of a special day for us.

Since I’ve never really celebrated Cinco de Mayo, I’m curious… what do you do for Cinco de Mayo? Go out and party? Stay home and ponder the historical significance of the day? 😀 I would love to hear your stories!

Note: This roll was originally called the Spicy Jamie Roll, but I didn’t find it at all spicy, and I don’t know who Jamie is, so I decided to change the name to something a little more relevant. 🙂

Ingredients

6 sheets nori
3 cups sumeshi
6 oz sashimi-grade yellowtail
1 avocado
3 stalks green onion
1 oz tobiko
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp red pepper powder

Cooking Directions

Cook sushi rice.
Cut the avocado in half, discarding the pit.
Cut off the hard skin and discard.
Slice the avocado into thin sticks.
Wash the green onion, cut the long green stalks off of the white bulb-like things. Discard the white bulbs.
Chop the green onion.
Slice yellowtail into 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch by 2-3 inch sticks, against the grain.
Mix the mayonnaise and red pepper powder.
Roll the sushi inside-out, using avocado, yellowtail, and the mayonnaise mix as your fillings.
Sprinkle the chopped green onion, tobiko, and additional red pepper powder on top of the roll.
Enjoy!

Nigiri Recipes

Yellowtail Nigiri

I first tried yellowtail sashimi late last year, and it was love at first bite. Now, if you held a gun to my head and forced me to choose (please don’t, by the way) yellowtail would be my sashimi of choice, even over tuna and salmon! It has such light flavor and just melts between your teeth – it’s not chewy at all! There’s nothing not to love about yellowtail!

A little background information about yellowtail: A lot of people think that yellowtail is a type of tuna. This is a huge misconception… Yellowtail is actually a type of Jack Fish, but is also called yellowtail kingfish in Australia and New Zealand. It’s called yellowtail because… you guessed it – it’s tail is yellow! The yellowtail is a super duper powerful swimmer and has a very aerodynamic… er… aquadynamic? (edit: one of my readers, Lodewijk, has informed me it’s actually hydrodynamic 😀 ) body, shaped like a torpedo. This makes it very fast and a popular game fish. It is one of the top three game fish in Southern California – I’ve even found it at my farmers market! It is generally found in the tropical waters of the Southern Hemisphere and in the northern Pacific. (California, Baja California, Japan!)

Ingredients

1 cup sumeshi
1 oz yellowtail sashimi

Cooking Directions

Cook sushi rice.
Using either your hands or a rice mold, form the rice into 5 or 6 small oblong balls.
Cut the yellowtail into slices larger than your rice balls.
Place each slice of yellowtail on top of a rice ball. You may place a small dab of wasabi on the underside of the yellowtail if you wish.
Serve with shoyu, wasabi, and ginger if desired.

Nigiri Recipes

Tuna Nigiri

So simple, and yet so good. This is definitely the most basic type of sushi, and the most common one seen in media, sushi bars, and anywhere else sushi or pictures of sushi might be found. Not surprisingly this is what most people thing of when they think of sushi.

Tuna (maguro) nigiri is something I get at almost every sushi restaurant/bar I go to, just because it is so darn delicious! However I wouldn’t recommend serving this to people who are grossed out by the idea of eating raw fish… a little too much of a fishy flavor for that. Personally, I think it would be better to start out with yellowtail (hamachi) or white tuna (ono)… they have much subtler flavors, and are much softer to bite into!

We were so lucky to receive this tuna. Over Thanksgiving weekend last year, we spent Thanksgiving day with my family, and then went home. Later, that Saturday, we went back out to my parents’ to go with the family to an annual Christmas party that I hadn’t been to in years. Coming home, we found out that a neighbor of my parents had gone fishing that day (he owns his own boat) and caught some fantastic yellowfin tuna. He cleaned, filleted, and vacuum-packed the fish on his boat, so it was all ready for us to take home! All I had to do was slice the fillet and roll it in sushi! Are you hungry yet? 🙂

Ingredients

1 cup sumeshi
1 oz sashimi-grade tuna

Cooking Directions

Cook sushi rice.
Using either your hands or a rice mold, form the rice into 5 or 6 small oblong balls.
Cut the tuna into slices larger than your rice balls.
Place each slice of tuna on top of a rice ball. You may place a small dab of wasabi on the underside of the tuna if you wish.
Serve with shoyu, wasabi, and ginger if desired.

Maki Recipes

New York Roll

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Yeah, I know… don’t ask. I have absolutely no clue why this is called the New York Roll! If anyone has any idea of the origin of the name, or any suggestions for a roll better deserving of the name, please share! 😀 (Do my New Yorkers have any good suggestions? 🙂 )

This is very similar to the Naked Spicy Tuna Roll except not spicy… no jalapeños! Oh, and it’s inside out, and has sesame seeds, and I actually tried this one. 🙂 A perfect alternative for those of us who can’t take so much spice!

Recipe
Nutrition Info

Ingredients

6 sheets nori
3 cups sumeshi
1 cucumber
4 oz cream cheese
6 oz sashimi-grade tuna
1 oz sesame seeds

Cooking Directions

Cook sushi rice.
Cut cucumber into sticks.
Slice tuna into 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch by 2-3 inch sticks, against the grain.
Roll the sushi inside-out*, using a few sticks of cucumber, some cream cheese, and some tuna as your fillings.
* After you spread the rice on the nori but before you flip the nori over, sprinkle some sesame seeds over the rice and press them in so they stick.

Serving Size: 1 roll New York Roll

Calories: 238
Fat: 8g, 13% DV
Saturated Fat: 4g, 19% DV
Cholesterol: 31mg, 10% DV
Sodium: 597mg, 25% DV
Total Carbohydrates: 29g, 10% DV
Dietary Fiber: 2g, 7% DV
Sugars: 17g
Protein: 10g, 21% DV
Vitamin A: 22%
Vitamin C: 7%
Calcium: 6%
Iron: 9%
Magnesium: 9%
Potassium: 5%

Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. These values are only estimates based on the individual ingredients, and not meant to replace the advice of a medical professional.

More Pictures

Maki Recipes

Naked Spicy Tuna Roll

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Hot hot hot! This is another spicy tuna roll, but it gets it’s heat from a completely different source. Instead of the Sriracha sauce that is in normal spicy tuna rolls, this one has a jalapeno as one of it’s fillings. Even though it has cream cheese to soothe your taste buds… it really doesn’t help much. Or so I hear. To be honest, I made Son try this one, and I didn’t even have a bite! If I had, I guarantee I would have been running around the kitchen with tears running down my face. 😀 Those of you who are like me and not huge spicy fans… yeah you, you know who you are!… this one isn’t for you. However the rest of you who adore spicy foods… yes I know you know who you are too!… you will love this!

Recipe
Nutrition Info

Ingredients

6 sheets nori
3 cups sumeshi
1 cucumber
4 oz cream cheese
6 jalapeño peppers or a bunch of sliced jalapeños from a jar (this is what I used)
6 oz sashimi-grade tuna

Cooking Directions

Cook sushi rice.
Cut cucumber into sticks.
Slice jalapeños… but be careful! Don’t get the oils in your eyes! Discard the stem.
Slice tuna into 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch by 2-3 inch sticks, against the grain.
Roll the sushi, using a few sticks of cucumber, some cream cheese, a sliced jalepeño and some tuna as your fillings.

Serving Size: 1 roll Naked Spicy Tuna Roll

Calories: 218
Fat: 6g, 10% DV
Saturated Fat: 3g, 17% DV
Cholesterol: 31mg, 10% DV
Sodium: 965mg, 40% DV
Total Carbohydrates: 29g, 10% DV
Dietary Fiber: 2g, 7% DV
Sugars: 17g
Protein: 10g, 20% DV
Vitamin A: 29%
Vitamin C: 11%
Calcium: 3%
Iron: 7%
Magnesium: 6%
Potassium: 5%

Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. These values are only estimates based on the individual ingredients, and not meant to replace the advice of a medical professional.