Sushi 'Bake" Based on Sheep Art

If you've a fan of sushi, you're going to love this sushi "bake." I say "bake" because I don't bake it, but I've seen people recommend popping the finished bake in the oven at the end to heat it up and make everything "melt" together. I don't care for warm sushi, so I decided to skip the baking step. If you want to give it a go, I've seen recommendations of 350 degrees F for 15 minutes.

This look of this particular sushi bake was based off a cute painting of two sheep in a pasture done by Phyllis Adams. I created a "sunset" version of the painting because there aren't blue sushi ingredients (that I am aware of).

This is a fun project and sushi bakes are perfect to put together for gatherings. All these ingredients can be precooked so this comes together really quickly, even more so if you're not mimicking a sheep painting! ;)

For this recipe you will need:

sushi rice

seaweed laver (salty seaweed rectangles)

nori sheets

rice seasoning (furikake)

Kikkoman Aji-Mirin (sweet cooking rice seasoning)

shrimp, salmon, mock crab (or any other toppings you like in your sushi)

avocado, carrots, cucumbers

2 oz cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup kewpie mayo

This bake includes salmon, mock crab and shrimp (not pictured... whoops!). I like to liberally sprinkle my salmon with lemon pepper seasoning and bake at 350 degrees F until the fish flakes easily with a fork, about 25 minutes for this filet. Cool fish completely and break up into chunks. For the shrimp, I removed the tails and cut into chunks. Break up the mock crab into smaller bits and put all in the refrigerator until ready to assemble the bake.

Sushi rice is easier to make than you may think. I used 2 cups of medium grain sushi rice for this recipe. You can find all kinds of sushi rice options at your local Asian market (as well as the other ingredients this recipe calls for, provided COVID doesn't interrupt the supply chain!).

Put two cups of rice in a rice cooker and rinse several times until the water runs mostly clear (the photo is from the rinsing step not as clear as it was before cooking). Don't skip this step! Rinsing the rice removes surface starch and helps the rice from getting gummy. Drain the water from the rice then add 2 1/2 cups of water and start the rice cooker.

Once the rice has cooked, dump it into a bowl and mix in 1/4 cup of sushi seasoning while the rice is still hot. I used Aji-Mirin from Kikkoman. Some sushi rice recipes call for sugar and salt but this particular product is pre-seasoned so you don't need to add anything else. Mix the rice well and let it cool completely in the fridge.

When you are ready to assemble, press the rice into a 9x9 baking sheet. Reserve about 1/4 cup of rice for the sheep.

Typically when I make a sushi bake, I sprinkle the rice with a seasoning blend called furikake. Unfortunately, our local markets have been out of this for a few months due to supply chain interruption. As a substitution, I cut up a sheet of nori and blended it up in my mini food processor. I sprinkled it all over the rice and then added some Everything Bagel seasoning mix on top. This is the closest I could think that would compare to furikake, but of course, if you can get your hands on the real thing, it is worth it to pick this up. The nori + bagel seasoning was a fair compromise though!

For this recipe, I would normally use kewpie mayo. Kewpie mayo is an eggier mayo that you can usually find at your local Asian market, but supply chain issues again have reared their ugly head! You can substitute regular mayo if you can't find the kewpie mayo, which is what I ended up doing here.

Break all the seafood into chunks and put into a larger mixing bowl. Add about 1/4 cup of mayo and 2 oz of softened cream cheese to the bowl and mix to coat all the seafood.

Since I was copying the sheep painting, I layered my sushi bake a little differently than if you were just making a regular sushi bake. If you're making a regular bake, just layer it up and make it look pretty.

I wanted avocado and fish on the whole bake, but I didn't want to show avocado in the sky and I didn't want to show fish in the meadow so I had to carefully consider how to layer. I thinly sliced up an avocado and a cucumber. I layered the sky with the avocado slices first. Next I put a layer of the fish over the whole top of the bake, covering the avocado layer. Next I layered avocado and cucumber to make the meadow on just the bottom of the bake.

Now was the fun part, making sheepies! I sketched out the sheep from the painting and covered the sketch with a piece of parchment paper. With the reserved rice, I molded the rice into the shape of the sheep, using the drawing as a guide. Next I cut several thin strips of nori from a sheet of nori. I wrapped each sheep with a strip of nori and used a bit of water to attach the nori to the rice. I trimmed another strip of the nori to make legs as well. Finally I cut out the sheep faces out of nori and gently wet the nori with water before placing the faces on the sheep bodies.

I placed the sheep on the bake and added in the legs. To finish it up, I thinly sliced some carrots and cut them into little flowers for a splash of color. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

When you are ready to serve the bake, cut it into 1/2 inch by 2 inch squares. Use the seaweed laver (salted nori squares) to pick up each section of the bake. Turn the section over and eat it like a little sushi taco! If you have a hard time finding seaweed laver, you can just cut a regular sheet of nori into quarters. Seaweed laver is a little saltier than regular nori, but you can make it work if you need to!

I've included a picture of what a "regular" sushi bake looks like, for reference, though it's not as pretty to look at. You can add whatever sushi ingredients you like to the top of your bake including raw fish if you have a reliable source for it. Add a little spicy mayo or sriracha if you care for it. You can even make several flavors of sushi in one pan and make it a real crowd pleaser! This is an easy way to make a sushi dinner for many people, though maybe a little messier than normal sushi!

I hope you give this recipe a try, it's a nice change of pace!