I’ve bought a few Japanese cookbooks recently. I’ve been making udon, tofu, and a lot of curry. Sushi Modoki is the only 100% vegan book in the pile of acquisitions and the only sushi book, so I knew I was going to have fun with it. Sushi Modoki is plant-based sushi that mimics the look and flavour of traditional sushi. There are three different ways to mimic tuna. It’s all very exciting but do they taste as good as they look?

My nigiri making skills are still in their infancy so I figured I’d start there to get some practice in. I made the Marinated Tuna Modoki Nigiri and the Salmon Modoki Nigiri. The salmon was nice — you can’t really go wrong with carrot — but the marinated ‘tuna’ was fabulous. The marinade made the red pepper slice taste amazing and the texture had that perfect touch of fattiness.

I moved quickly onto the inari chapter. Inari might just be my favourite food. I opted to make the Open Inari with egg modoki and pickled cucumber. As plain inari is already my favourite food I didn’t expect there would be much room for improvement. Thankfully I was wrong.  I’m pretty sure the Japanese invented scrambled tofu for eggs, so that’s just perfect, and the pickled cucumber stuffing in this has quickly become one of my favourite quick pickles. The condiment section at the back of the book is worth the price of the whole thing alone.

I then turned my attention to the rolls. I started with some circular ones to get my confidence up and made the a batch of Veggie Tempura Roll. I’ve been making tempura quite a bit recently in an attempt to eat more vegetables by deep frying them first. This is my new favourite batter. In there are green beans and corn. It is deeply satisfying.

There is also a recipe for mock shrimp, but I can’t get konnyaku locally. It will have to wait until my next visit to Japan Centre. It is written by a Japanese author living in Japan and thus uses ingredients that aren’t necessarily available in supermarkets in the South West of England (and if they are they’re often of inferior quality). I hunt down the more hard-to-find stuff online.

Then I may have got a bit overconfident. I thought It would be just as easy to  roll a square as a circle. It was not. But once dipped in soy sauce who really cares about a few wonky edges. Other than Instagram.

Sushi Modoki is more than a gimmick. iina has created recipes that taste and look amazing with enough extra tips and hints in here to keep you full and happy for a long time. Any vegan with an interest in sushi or Japanese cooking will enjoy having this on their shelves.