Sushi? Yum...Braised pork belly? Drool...
Put the two together? Hell yeah!
I'd like to think that this was an original idea of mine but I'm sure someone out there has already beaten me to it. Anyway, this is how I imagined what food would look like when you fuse Chinese with Japanese cuisine. The melt-in-your-mouth pork belly that's braised using a traditional soy-based Chinese recipe (dong po pork), combined with the simple elegance of the sushi roll creates an interesting meld of flavors and textures.
Sushi is one of those things that look deceivingly challenging to prepare but is actually really easy and quick. It's one of my favorite things to make at home when I want something light and healthy. I actually prefer to make it myself because I dont normally eat raw fish and I usually make the Korean version - kimbap - using kimchi, eggs, avocado and imitation crab meat as the filling (I don't really know what the difference is between Korean kimbap and Japanese sushi - I just prefer to call mine kimbap because kimchi is a distinctly Korean ingredient). All you need is a sushi mat, a few sheets of nori, sushi-grade rice, rice wine vinegar and your choice of filling and you're good to go. If you've never made sushi/kimbap before, here's a good instructional video from Maangchi: http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/kimbap.
