Spinach Rolls Drizzled with Sesame Sauce
In this recipe fresh vibrant spinach is lightly cooked, rolled in a sushi mat and served with a sesame sauce. It is stunning in it’s simplicity and the recipe serves 2 people.
We offer two sauce options with this recipe – the original recipe and then an umami sauce using lapsang souchong which we show pictured. We discovered this recipe in a book called Izakaya Japanese Bar Food published by Hardie Grant books, Melbourne and London.
For the spinach rolls:
You need: 1 bunch of English spinach, ends trimmed
To prepare the spinach: Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil. Add the spinach and cook for 3 minutes or until wilted. Drain and plunge into iced water. Drain again and squeeze tightly to remove any excess water. Place the spinach on a sushi mat and roll tightly. Cut into even pieces
For the sesame sauce:
You need:
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
2 tablespoons dashi stock
1 tablespoon Japanese soy sauce
1 teaspoon caster sugar
1 teaspoon mirin (sweet rice wine)
To prepare the sesame sauce:
Place the sesame seeds in a mortar and pestle, pound until the seeds start to break up. Gradually add the dashi stock, pounding as you go until the mixture is smooth. Stir in the soy sauce, sugar and mirin. Drizzle over your prepared spinach rolls immediately prior to eating.
Or
For the alternative tea umami sauce (pictured):
¼ cup brewed Stir Tea’s Lapsang Souchong tea, cooled
(1 teaspoon loose leaf tea brewed with 250 mls boiling water, then measure ¼ cup of the liquor)
¼ cup tahini
1 tablespoon liquid aminos or organic soy sauce
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1/8 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
To prepared the tea umami sauce:
Whisk the brewed tea with the tahini, liquid aminos, maple syrup, and pepper. Drizzle over your prepared spinach rolls immediately prior to eating.
We enjoy this dish accompanied by a cup of green tea.
www.stirtea.co.nz
