California Spring Rolls – I used imitation crab, for real!

I get the occasional request for a sushi demo. I usually tell the viewer (politely of course) to go out for sushi and leave me alone. Properly made sushi is an art and take decades of practice to master. Now, of course I could fake my way through a simple California Roll, which is just the basic crab, rice and avocado rolled up in a Nori seaweed wrapper. But, even that requires properly cooked short-grain sushi rice which is quite easy to mess up at home. So I came up with this idea to combine the components of the California Roll and present it in Spring Roll form. If you saw our Chicken Caesar Spring Roll clip, you saw how easy (and healthy) spring rolls are. They are fast, beautiful, and perfect for the summer, when you just don’t want go anywhere near the stove. These rice paper wrappers are found in any store that sells dry Asian noodles, which is every large grocery store. You’ve never seen them because you’ve never looked for them; they’re on the bottom shelf.

Regarding the imitation crab I used for this recipe clip. If you’ve never thought about using it, it’s time to give it a try. Imitation crab has come a long way since it hit the market many years ago. It used to be fairly low quality; a little bit of Pollock, a lot of vegetable starch and other fillers, and probably a dose of good old Red Dye #2. Well, these days there are some very good quality varieties to choose from. READ THE LABELS! As I show in the clip, while still made mainly from Pollack many are also flavored with many different “real” fish and shellfish extracts including scallops, lobster, salmon, etc. It’s also a fat free food!

You may be surprised to know that many Sushi Bars actually use this higher quality imitation crab in their California Rolls, as the real crab would be cost prohibitive. Trust me, if you’re paying $2.75 for that California Roll, you’re not getting fresh Dungeness crab! Can you tell the difference? I hope so. There is nothing like fresh, sweet crab. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t also use the imitation crab for recipes like this. It’s inexpensive, delicious, and if you read the label, pretty nutritious. By the way, stay tuned for the very simple Wasabi dipping sauce I used along side these. Enjoy!



Ingredients:
spring roll wrappers (aka rice paper rolls)
imitation crab (flake style)
ripe avocado
shredded cabbage
red leaf lettuce