Pimp That Snack

Giant California Roll

by Angela McLaughlin 10 photos Rated 64% 181 votes when voting closed

Someone posted on the forums about thinking there should be more savoury
pimped snacks and it piqued my imagination. I love sushi. So does my
flatmate. So we decided to make…. the GIANT CALIFORNIA ROLL OF DOOM!

Eggs, rice vinegar, Japanese mayonnaise, avocados, nori sheets and seafood sticks laid out on the worktop

Rice Wine Vinegar ($1.80)
Half a packet of rice (75c)
Four sheets of nori (seaweed paper) ($1.20)
One avocado ($1.48)
Mayonaise ($3.20)
Seven crabsticks ($3.00)
Four Eggs worth of Scrambled Eggs (free – i love having chooks in the
family!)

Approximate cost: $11.43

Step One: Make Scrambled Eggs in a saucepan. Don’t forget the non-stick
spray or your project will grind to a halt before it even starts.

Pan of soft scrambled egg cooked and left cooling in the stainless saucepan

Step Two: Unwrap crabsticks (yes, these ones were the only not frozen ones,
and they were individually wrapped).

A hand holding a single crab stick still sealed in its plastic wrapper

Step Three: Steam rice in the microwave for four times for five minutes on
medium high so it doesn’t leak all over the microwave. This is a good time
to do the vaccuuming, fold the laundry and check your email.

Step Four: Paste the sheets of Nori paper together using rice wine and a
cotton tip (we don’t own a basting brush). Brush a line on the two joining
sides along the edge and stick. Don’t be stingy with the rice wine cos it’ll
fall apart if you are.

Brushing white paste along the seam to glue nori sheets into one giant sheet

Step Five: Start assembling. Rice first. It needs to be sticky, to the point
that trying to get it off the spoon will result in gluing one’s fingers
together.

Joined sheets of nori on greaseproof paper with a thick band of sushi rice spread across

Step Six: Add egg. Use a knife to get the crunchy bits off the bottom of the
saucepan after forgetting to take it off the hotplate and burning the base.

A stripe of yellow-flecked filling spread along the centre of the rice bed

Step Seven: Add Mayonaise. Discover this isn’t the mayonaise you thought
you’d brought at the shop, but the ‘light’ version which tastes like creamy
dishwashing detergent.

Step Eight: Add crabsticks. This part was fun. They’re so pretty! and taste
so good fried…

Whole crab sticks laid end to end in a red line along the filling

Step Nine: Add Avocado.

Sliced avocado layered over the crab sticks, completing the filling before rolling

Step Ten: ROLL THE THING! I have no idea how I did this. I went to grab it
and it was too heavy, so I tried grabbing the paper underneath it to kinda
start it off, discovered that didn’t work, started to worry cos the seaweed
was drying out, then grabbed it with both hands, folded the rice in half and
rolled. Sealed it with rice wine and voila!

Finished roll wrapped in nori on paper, rice, avocado and crab stick showing at one end

Cut end showing rice packed around avocado, egg and a pink-and-white crab stick

This fed us for dinner last night and my flatmate for work today, with
approximately 20cm to go. It measures approximately 28cm long and 8cm high,
and has made our whole kitchen smell like crabstick. Beautiful!

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