Blog 1 - LuLu’s Plant-Based Asian Fusion Workshop

Sushi/Nigiri/Gunkan Preparation

LuLu @ LuxOrganic held her first plant-based Workshop at the beautiful Henry Warren Hall, Nyewood near Petersfield. It was the perfect place to hire and hold the workshop, based in the heart of the South Downs National Park.

On Monday 13 May just before 10am, 6 wonderful ladies arrived and after donning aprons and being offered a hot turmeric immunity drink (ice cubes of the tonic with added hot water), a green smoothie and a peanut energy ball, we all got down to business.

We started with an introduction to essential pantry plant-based ingredients which although might seem expensive at the time, are used over and over again for different recipes within a plant-based diet. The idea was not to convert participants to going to a total plant-based diet, but to show the wonderful ingredients that can be made into various delicious and healthy foods.

Then, the group following given recipes, started makingh their own bowls of Korean Chilli Cucumbers which were to be used as part of a nigiri roll later on and as a delicious pickle to take home.

Miso soup was demonstrated and hopefully it showed how a nutritious soup could be made very quickly with ingredients such as miso, tofu, pak choi, nori seaweed and a few spices.

A delicious sauce was then made individually by the group which was to go over the Edamame Beans, the making of which was demonstrated first. Any leftovers of the Edamame Sauce could be taken home and used as a delicious salad dressing or as a marinade for supper with their favourite protein.

We had a quick snack of long pink radishes in a vegan mayo with a black olive dehydrated crumb in a bamboo boat and then moved onto the highlight of the Workshop.

LuLu demonstrated the rolling and there were a whole host of ingredients and exciting toppings for all to make the pieces their own. All the participants did exceptionally well going on to roll Sushi, many for the first time. We had some very delicious and individual looking pieces. We did orange pepper and yellow pickled daikon (raddish) maki, red pickled cabbage and cucumber uramaki, kimchi rice balls, pickled watermelon rind with a nori strip and roasted red pepper nigiri, and finished with a pickled Korean chilli cucumber gunkan (war boat). Lots of fun and hopefully the participants will make again at home.

Plating up on on eco-friendly sugar cane trays the group ended the workshop tasting what they had made.

Thank you ladies for coming, for all doing so very well and for making the workshop so much fun. Thanks to Olga and Tania for all your invaluable background help too!

Until next time from LuLu’s plant-based world…tasting is believing!!