Tofuligans

While enjoying Sunday brunch at Isa and Justin’s place, Michelle C asked me if I’d like to come over and make sushi for the Vegan MoFo Iron Chef Challenge.  I quickly obliged, and decided that we should make sushi filled with yam tempura, a filling that seems more common in Canada than elsewhere.  Somewhere in the discussion of temura the idea struck to batter and fry an entire sushi roll.  Was it possible?  We were about to find out!

I headed over to Aaron and Michelle’s awesome apartment and we got started with the planning.  We decided that in addition to the yam tempura filling, we would try to batter some plaintain as well!  The plantain was found at a hidden gem of a corner store near the apartment where they stock all kinds of vegan friendly ethnic foods, and plenty of plantain.

We searched for a vegan tempura recipe, and settled on this one, based solely on the mention of fluffiness.  We blanched the yam and plantain, coated it in batter, and fried it up.  The fluffiness was no joke!

It was now time to get out our sushi mats and start rolling.  We made a bunch of different varieties, filling with carrots, cucumber, avocado, veganaisse and of course the yam and plantain tempura.

The tempura, though fluffy, still rolled well into the sushi.

I made a single inside-out roll, because I had a specific goal in mind, to coat it in batter and fry that sucker up!  Here are the results, as crispy and delicious as can be!

They came out so golden, flaky and satisfying.  The batter held the oil at bay, and the rice never really got greasy as you might expect.

The sushi party was a great success and we ended up with a giant platter!