Cafe Gratitude Sushi Rice Bowl

July 14, 2011 at 1:03 pm (B_minus (2 stars, okay), Dark leafy greens, Grains, Japanese, Other)

I had a delicious smoothie at Cafe Gratitude in Berkeley right before I moved to Germany.   I never got a chance to try their food though, so when I saw this recipe for a sushi rice bowl based on Cafe Gratitude’s “I Am Accepting” I decided to give it a try.  The recipe says it serves 2-3, depending on how hungry you are.

Dressing
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp water
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp tamari
1 Tbsp rice vinegar
1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil
2 tsp agave syrup
2 Tbsp ginger

Rice
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
1 serrano chile, finely chopped
pinch of salt
4 small garlic cloves, minced
2-3 tightly packed cups of kale, center rib removed, sliced into
short, very thin strips
2-3 cups cooked short grain brown rice (or red Bhutanese)
3 small scallions, coarsely chopped

Toppings
1 ripe avocado
1 cup cucumber, julienned into small pieces
Toasted nori (seaweed) cut into small pieces
Toasted sesame seeds

To make the dressing: Stir together salt and lemon juice and let sit a
few minutes. Stir in olive oil, then add the remaining ingredients.
Set aside.

To prepare the rice dish: Heat olive oil in a large pan over
medium-high heat, then add in onion, salt and serrano chile. Cook,
stirring, until onions just begin to brown. Add in garlic and kale,
and cook, stirring, until the kale wilts and becomes tender. (You may
want to add a bit of water and cover the pan to steam the kale a
little if it begins to brown or burn before it gets tender.) Add in
the cooked rice and stir until the rice is heated through. Add in the
scallions and remove pan from heat. Stir in dressing. Cover to keep
warm.

To assemble: Pile rice mixture in a bowl and gently top with chunks of
avocado, cucumber and nori. Sprinkle toasted sesame seeds and nori
bits liberally on top.

My notes:

I can’t get Kale or serranos here so I used chard and some other kind of hot green pepper.   I didn’t let my brown rice sit long enough and it ended up a bit moist, even before I added all the dressing.  Other than the somewhat wet texture, the dish tasted fine.  I liked the nori pieces, the sesame seeds, teh avocado, the julienned cucumber…  But I didn’t find the recipe inspiring.  I thought the dressing was perhaps a tad sweet?  And Derek thought it wasn’t salty enough.  But otherwise he liked it, and ate it happily for several meals in a row, along with some seitan I had made.  Maybe the dish would be better with kale, but I don’t think I’ll make this recipe again with chard.  I’ll keep looking for a really amazing rice bowl recipe.

Somewhat ironically, despite the name, this recipe didn’t not make me accepting.

Rating: B

Derek: B