The Artful Vegan- Crisp Yuba Rolls with Nori, Shiitakes, Hijiki, and Barley
This is the first recipe in The Artful Vegan, and thus the first for my Methodical Cookbook Project. I’m not going to post the whole recipe because I think that’s a crappy thing to do. If you want the whole recipe go buy the book! I will write about the ingredients and the process in a very general sense though.
It took me a while to assemble the ingredients, the most difficult of which was the yuba skin. I knew I would likely find it at the big Asian supermarket, but it took a while to feel like driving there. Eventually we needed a bunch of stuff from there anyway. Then we wandered around the store for a while looking for yuba. I once bought what I thought was yuba there, but it turned out to be a thicker kind of skin that was pretty gross. The yuba skin was eventually found in the freezer section, not far from the yummy soy ham. It’s HUGE!
That was probably my only complaint about the recipe- it didn’t specify what size yuba skin to use. It said to place a sheet of nori on top of the yuba to make a roll, and that wouldn’t work at all if I used a whole sheet of this, so I cut one sheet into four pieces and made one roll with each piece. There is a lot of yuba left over, but I know I have a couple of other recipes in other books that call for it.
One of the ingredients was barley, which I cooked in advance last night in a pressure cooker. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, I definitely recommend one. They cook beans and grains super-fast. I have this one, which I also use for canning (mine came with a bunch of canning tools too. I haven’t cooked barley in ages because the last time I did I just boiled it and it took a really long time. But cooking this recipe made me realize that I like barley and should use it more often. I have about two cups of cooked barley left over so I’ll have to think of something to use it for soon.
The only ingredients that I could not find were “shichimi togarashi” (Japanese seven spice powder), and kumquats. I looked for that spice powder in the Asian store and in two other stores with good selections of Asian stuff but no luck. The recipe said that you could substitute crushed red pepper flakes for the Japanese spices, so that’s what I did. I still want to track it down though. The kumquats were the biggest disappointment- I couldn’t find them anywhere! Maybe they’re not in season or something. They were for a “Spicy, Sweet, and Sour Kumquat-Lime Dressing” which I had made once before and really enjoyed. I tried substituting some orange peel for the kumquats, which was fine, but it wasn’t the same. Oh, and bean sprouts. The store I went to today to pick up some last-minute ingredients had mung bean sprouts but none of the other kinds that were in the recipe. So I added some radishes to the salad so it wouldn’t be only mung bean sprouts and carrots.
The rest of the preparation was pretty straightforward and not difficult at all. I love shiitake mushrooms, so I was happy this recipe contained them. I bought far too many of them, so I’ll be making some other shiitake stuff soon.
Getting ready to roll! The yuba was larger than the nori and a little bit stiff and difficult to roll but I figured it out well enough.
Into the oven, brushed with oil and tamari.
The rolls baked up nice and golden and crispy. Served with a vegetable salad, the lime (kumquat-less) dressing and some crushed peanuts.
Overall, I liked this recipe. The dressing would have been much better with the kumquats. I loved the crispy yuba skins combined with the nori. I think if I made this again I would alter the filling a bit to have much more shiitakes and barley and less seaweed. I love seaweed but it basically overpowered all the other flavors. Overall it was a tasty dinner though. Oh, I forgot to mention, this is listed in the book as an appetizer, but it worked well as a dinner.
Love the cooking posts.
Thank you for your post, we’re about to try this recipe from the book and your post was very helpful. There are no pictures in the book of this one and I would have had no idea about the Yuba skin.
I love Millennium!
Impressive project! And a truly ambitious book to start with. I own it too, and have made only a few recipes from it so far, but those have been superfantastic (beet reduction, anyone?). I’m doing a challenge of my own this month, all Japanese food all the time, and might try this one tomorrow. Your pictures look scrumptious!