This Dragon Roll Sushi recipe was taught to me by a real Japanese sushi chef. Trust me, it is outstanding!

Dragon Roll Sushi Recipe-

Ingredients:

(makes 8 servings)

For the Roll-

• About 6 cups prepared sushi rice (see recipe here)
• 1 Japanese cucumber (you can use a long regular cucumber, but if you can get a true Japanese cuke, by all means use that)
• 4 avocados
• 1 lemon
• 4 nori sheets, cut in half crosswise
• 16 shrimp tempura
• ⅛ cup (20 oz) Tobiko (Japanese orange caviar)
• Roasted Unagi (eel)

For toppings-

• spicy Japanese Mayo
• Unagi Sauce
• toasted sesame seeds

For Garnish and Dipping-

• Wasabi paste (ground, green Japanese horseradish)
• Thin sliced pickled ginger
• 1 lemon, thin sliced
• Soy sauce – provide on table, with a small bowl for each diner to pour some soy sauce into and mix some wasabi paste in with it, for dipping sauce.

Vinegar water for dipping hands (Tezu)

• ¼ cup water
• 2 tsp. rice vinegar

Items you will need-

• Bamboo Sushi Wrapping Mat
• Plastic wrap

Directions:

1. Peel the skin off the cucumber and slice it into thin strips, lengthwise.
2. Take the avocado and cut in in half, lengthwise, circling the knife around the seed, then twist the knife in one direction—the two halves will separate. Keep twisting in the same direction until one half comes apart from the pit. Now dig the knife point into the pit. Holding the skin of the avocado with your other hand, twist in back and forth directions. The pit will pop out easily.
3. Skin the avocado halves, and slice them width-wise into narrow slices.
4. Press the avocado slices with your fingers, gently, and then keep applying gentle and even pressure with the side of a knife until the length of the avocado slice is about the same as that of your nori seaweed sheet. Important! Squeeze some lemon juice over the avocado slices—this will keep them from tarnishing into a tannish-brown color as they sit while you do the rest of the steps.
5. Take some plastic wrap, and wrap the bamboo mat with it, then place half of a nori sheet, shiny side down, on it. Clean your hands in vinegar water (tezu) and spread the rice over the nori sheet. It is important that the rice is evenly spread over the entire nori sheet, and at a uniform thickness, even at the very edges and corners.
6. Now turn the rice-loaded over, and place the shrimp tempura, cucumber strips, and tobiko at the bottom edge of the nori sheet. If you are using unagi, place inside with the rest, as well.
7. Starting with the bottom edge, roll the nori sheet up and over the filling, nice and tight, and firm, with the bamboo mat until the bottom edge reaches the nori sheet. Lift the bamboo mat up and roll it over.
8. Place the bamboo mat over the roll and squeeze the roll tightly.
9. Place the avocado on top of the roll, using the edge of a knife.
10. Now place another plastic wrap over the roll, and put the bamboo mat over it. Squeeze tightly—but not too tightly, until the avocado slices are firmly wrapped around the sushi. Take care to squeeze with just enough pressure that the avocado slices adhere to the roll but are not broken.
11. Now take a sharp knife and cut the roll into 8 pieces. Between each slicing, wipe the knife clean with a well soaked towel. One you have completed slicing, take the plastic wrap off, and transfer the slices to a serving platter, arranging them in a gentle “S” pattern, to symbolize a slithering dragon.
12. Put your tobiko on top of the slices, and then drizzle the tops with the Unagi sauce and spicy mayo. Lastly, sprinkle on the black sesame seeds.
13. Garnish your dragon roll sushi with a lump of wasabi paste, a small pile of thin sliced pickled ginger, and a few wedges of sliced lemon. The Japanese are very much into artistic presentation, so for the true ethnic experience, form the wasabi and ginger into pleasant looking shapes, and arrange the lemon wedges neatly as you place the garnishes on the platter.

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Now, if you are like I was, when I first read a recipe like this for making a complex sushi roll, you might a little dazed by now, teehee. So, here is a good video presentation that will walk you through the steps. Hopefully, visualizing how it is done will erase any doubts from your mind about preparing a Dragon Roll – it did for me.

This particular cook uses some small variations from our recipe, but the basic steps are the same, and most importantly, the easy to be confusing techniques (in written form) are all there, so seeing how it’s done is going to help you make perfect Dragon Roll Sushi.

Here we go:

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