Keroppi Maki Rolls

Keroppi Maki Rolls is part of a larger Japanese character based meal titled "Kyaraben on Steroids" featured in August's Foodbuzz's 24-24-24. Click here to see the entire meal.

These are simple cucumber rolls filled with sushi rice, cucumbers, and seaweed. In order to make sushi, you must first make sushi rice. Click here for a simple tutorial/recipe.

Cucumber "Keroppi"

Let's prepare the cucumber first. I like to use thinner Japanese pickling cucumbers. Slice the cucumber in half, and then into three equal parts as shown below. The "V" that you are creating will be his mouth.

 

Cut a piece of dried seaweed the same length as the cucumber and sandwich it between the three pieces as shown below:

Now let's make the eyes. Roll up two thin cylinders of rice with dried seaweed sheets. You will need a bamboo wrapper to wrap the maki rolls. Lay a layer of seaweed on the bamboo roll and put a small layer of rice onto the edge.

 Roll up the seaweed around the rice until the edge of the seaweed is touching seaweed on the other side. Try to make sure that the roll is wrapped as tightly as possible.

Make two of these "eyes" maki rolls.

Now assemble the big roll. Put a new layer of rice down onto the seaweed. :ay the two "eyes" rolls on top of the cucumber. Can you start to see Keroppi?

Now roll the whole thing together and slice! Voila! I used sesame seeds for the eye balls.