Smoked Salmon & Cucumber Rice Bowls with Sesame Dressing

• 200 gsmoked salmon, roughly torn
• 200 gsushi rice, rinsed
• 1 tbsprice vinegar
• 1cucumber, halved, sliced into half-moons
• 1 tspfresh ginger, grated
• 2spring onions, green tops only, sliced
• 1 tspmaple syrup
• 1 tbspsesame oil
• 1 tbsptamari
• 1 tbspsesame seeds, toasted
• ½lemon, for squeezing
• Fine salt and black pepper
• 50 gpickled ginger (optional)
• 150 gcooked, podded edamame (optional)
• 800 mlmiso soup (optional)

Method

1. 1Rinse the sushi rice until the water runs clear; this washes off the surface starch that turns the bowl gluey. Cook per packet instructions with a pinch of salt, then tip it onto a tray and fan it with a board to cool to just-warm, about 5 minutes. You want it glossy and tender, not steaming hot.
2. 2Whisk the sesame oil, 2 tsp rice vinegar, tamari, maple syrup and grated ginger in a small bowl until the maple syrup dissolves and the dressing looks unified. Taste it now; the salt comes from the tamari, the lift from the vinegar. a few drops more vinegar if it tastes flat, a pinch of salt if the tamari isn't carrying.
3. 3Toss the cucumber half-moons with a pinch of salt and the remaining 1 tsp rice vinegar. Leave them for 5 minutes; they'll turn translucent at the edges and shed a little liquid, which is exactly what you want. Salted-then-drained cucumber stays crunchy in the bowl instead of weeping into the rice. Drain before assembling the bowls.
4. 4Divide the warm rice between two bowls. Drape the torn smoked salmon over one side and pile the cucumber on the other, leaving a strip of rice visible down the middle so the dressing has somewhere to pool.
5. 5Spoon over the sesame dressing and scatter with spring onion greens and toasted sesame seeds. Squeeze the lemon over the salmon. Add any of the optional pickled ginger, cooked edamame and miso soup if using.

Per serving

kcal

693

protein

35.5g

fibre

3.9g

carbs

91.9g

fat

20g