Decorative Sushi: Halloween Pumpkin Sushi

I don't usually celebrate Halloween or anything (to old to go trick or treating now haha), but I do love the excuse to make themed foods!! I've been back into making decorative sushi lately, so with Halloween coming up lately I thought I'd share with you one of the relatively easier decorative sushi designs!

I can't say I'm a huge fan of the ghosts, vampires, spiders and whatever-else scary that pops up around Halloween, though I can say that I do quite like the pumpkins .....since they're usually cute ;) These pumpkin shaped sushi rolls don't actually have pumpkin though I guess you could chuck some in if you felt like it!

The trickiest part of this roll was to make the rice orange without ruining the texture of the rice- minced carrot works well (so long as it is minced very finely), although tastewise it's not great. Tinned tuna works alright although it gives more of a pink than orange colour, and makes the rice less sticky. Tobiko (flying fish roe) apparently works well too, but then it's not everyday that I find that in my fridge. I ended up throwing a bit of everything orange I could find into my rice, plus a packet of rice seasoning to give it a bit more flavour- so it did taste quite good, which is more than I can say for my other decorative sushi attempts!

I've taken some step-by-step pictures so you can make it too for Halloween, although my instructions are pretty bad..... feel free to ask me question, and Happy Halloween guys! (since I probably won't get a chance to post until afterwards)

Halloween Pumpkin Sushi Recipe

You will need:
Sushi rice, cooked
Seaweed
- 1 x 1/2 sized piece
- 1 x 1/4 sized piece
- 3 x 1/8 sized piece
Something orange eg canned tuna in tomato sauce, carrots (minced finely), salmon, salmon roe etc (to mix with rice)
Cucumber, sliced into sticks, length as long as 1/2 a nori sheet + some cubes for the top
Kombu, or something black/dark brown
Japanese rice seasoning (optional)

1. Prepare orange rice by mixing sushi rice with orange coloured food.
2. Prepare the mouth. Using the ¼ sheet piece, place kombu so that it covers half the sheet (I didn’t have kombu so I used Korean seaweed instead). Fold the nori in half. Place a thin layer of orange rice on top of this, then flip over so that the rice is on the bottom. Squeeze the seaweed+rice to form two sharp ridges. Cover with a thin layer of rice and set aside

3. Prepare the nose and eyes. Using the 1/8 sheet piece, place a slice of cucumber onto the nori and roll up tightly. Do this for all 3 cucumber slices

4. Place the ½ sheet lengthwise on the sushi mat, and then place a thin layer of rice, leaving around an inch thickness on each end. Sprinkle rice seasoning on top if using. Place the mouth in the middle (so that the two ridges that you made earlier are facing down i.e. upside down compared to how you made it) and cover with a thin layer of rice.

5. Place a cucumber in the middle, and cover the sides with a little more rice. Place two more cucumber slices on top (i.e. the eyes) with the pointy part facing up. Cover with more rice.

6. Using one hand, hold the sushi so that curls into shape (see picture), place more rice on top, being careful to leave enough space for the nori to close in on itself. Using the other hand, pull each side of the nori over onto the rice to form a tight roll.

7. Using a sharp knife, cut the roll into pieces. If they are looking a little misshapen, you can easily shape them after cutting by massaging the outside lightly. Decorate the top using small cucumber cubes!