Step-By-Step Hoisin Chicken Moreish Maki!

 

Feel like sushi, but can’t get safe fresh-but-previously-frozen-yet-yummy fish just like that? I sincerely and wholeheartedly recommend making these insanely delicious Hoisin Chicken Maki Rolls!

In this post, you’ll find step-by-step preparation, great links, and a video tutorial for maki rolling!

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Raw fish on plain rice -what’s not to love! 🙂

I love sushi, and preferably the genuine version. I’ve always tended to stay clear of the westernised alternatives that generally have less fish and more mayo. However, being coeliac, sushi is often the one and only option, and the good old salmon/tuna with rice and nothing else is admittedly starting to wear me down just a little. Are you feeling it too?

Here to save us is the Hoisin Chicken Maki! Nothing deep-fried and no mayo, slightly westernised I must admit, but full of goodness and absolutely bursting with flavour!

These are awesome if you’re having friends over for a wine-and-nibble night, perfect for a little cook-and-gaze dinner for two, or fun to make with your kids if you reckon they need a bit of contemporary multicultural input without the raw fish.

Whatever the occasion, you are going to absolutely l.o.v.e the taste of these “easy-peasy-Japanesey” maki rolls!

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 Use your chicken leftovers!

This Maki recipe came about when we had quite a bit of leftover chicken from my Special Roast Chicken. Nothing says multiple-dinners-in-one like a huge roast chicken! There’s SO much food in a whole chicken, it is always well worth the effort. -Not that there’s much effort involved. Just check out my recipe for perfect roast chicken and be amazed at the ease! Never ever throw away leftover chicken, not even the bones. It can all come to good use, trust me!

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You’ll need:

• Glad wrap (clingfilm) to cover the sushi mat
• Chicken (preferably leftover roast chicken)
• Avocado
• Spring onion
• Lettuce or baby leaf spinach
• Cucumber
• Sushi rice/ glutinous rice (Nb: has nothing to do with gluten!)
• Rice wine vinegar
• Sugar
• Vegetable oil
• Salt
• Water

Sushi mat and Nori sheets:

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Sauce:

• Gluten-free soy sauce
• Natural crunchy peanut butter (or black bean sauce)
• Sesame oil
• Honey
• Rice wine vinegar
• Garlic
• Chili paste

Read the recipe for perfect gluten-free hoisin sauce here!

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How to make the chicken maki

First off, you need to whip up a batch of my Gluten Free Hoisin Sauce. I recommend doubling the recipe (if you are 2 people, even more for a family), as you need sauce both for cooking and dipping.

Secondly you need to cook up some sushi rice. No, this is not the same as just any rice! Sushi rice is short grain and has a ‘stickier’ texture that will help hold the maki together. If you try to use long grain rice you will probably not succeed..

Recipe for perfectly cooked sushi rice here!

Once you’ve cooked the rice you want to spread it out onto a pan and allow it to cool. It should be nice and sticky, and cold before you start rolling your maki.

Whilst the rice is cooling you need to get that leftover Roast Chicken out of the fridge! If you didn’t read my recipe for perfectly roasted chicken, you can find it here!

All you need to do is shred the meat with your fingers. Pull it off of the bone and make good use of whatever’s left.

Shredded roast chicken meat will have a different flavour and texture to simply frying up fresh chicken breast. Naturally you can do as you please or use what you have available, but personally I prefer the shredded variety.

Once the meat is shredded, pop it in a hot frying pan and add just enough Hoisin Sauce to suit your taste buds. Some like it dripping in sauciness, I like it just sticky enough to add a bit of flavour. Just make sure you don’t let the meat sit there and boil in the sauce. You just want to warm it up enough for the chicken to soak up that lovely hoisin flavour.

Remember, the chicken is previously cooked (disregard this if you are in fact using fresh chicken breast! If so, make sure the meat is cooked through thoroughly before you add the sauce!), so leaving it on the heat for too long will dry it out. Also, the sugar content in the sauce will soon make it into syrup or even burn if you leave it to boil.

Once the chicken is nice and sticky with hoisin sauce, you wanna take it off the heat and let it cool down.

Whilst the chicken’s cooling, you can start chopping your vegetables. Remember that the Maki roll is long and slim, so try to make your vegetables the same shape. Make slim sticks of cucumber, spring onion and avocado, and shred the lettuce (or spinach) finely. You’ll soon find that if your ingredients are too chunky, you won’t be able to roll very nice Maki.

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Now the fun (or the real work) can begin!

The first thing I recommend you do, is wrap clingfilm around your sushi mat. If you get rice stuck in the gaps you’re looking at either accepting it as a permanent feature, or taking on the challenge of cleaning it with toothpicks! personally I say don’t go there.. Wrap your mat well, and you can just slip the clingfilm off, and put your mat in the drawer for next time!

TIP: In preparation, make sure all your ingredients are within reach, or you’ll have a seriously sticky kitchen at the end of it.. Make up a bowl of water with a tad of rice wine vinegar to dip your hands (and your knife if need be) in.

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Method:

1) Lay the Nori shiny side down on the mat, and make sure the stripes are parallel with the sushi mat sticks.

2) Using wet hands, spread rice evenly on the nori . Try to keep it at max 1 cm or your maki will be less of a roll and more of a lump. Spread rice all the way to the edges, but leave about 2 cm of nori empty on the end furthest away from you. If you fail to leave this bit without rice, your maki won’t stick shut.

3) Starting about a third of the way into the sheet, start placing your ingredients horizontally onto the nori. I dare say less is more on this one.. it soon gets a bit too plump and messy if you go heavy on the goodies in this step 🙂

4) You will be using the bamboo mat to roll the maki. Carefully hold the filling in place with your fingers as you grab on to the mat with your thumbs. Let your thumbs pull the mat up and around the nori, rolling the maki away from you.

5) At the point where the mat has done a full circle and touches down, you wanna press the maki roll firmly before you readjust and keep rolling. Once the maki has done a full turn, the little lip of nori that you left without rice will ‘glue’ onto the outside of the nori sheet. This end should be facing down so the maki roll is held in place.

 

 

If all this sounds Japanese to you, check out the handy little video below!

6) Voila, you have a maki roll! Make sure your knife is nice and sharp, hold on to the maki and carefully slice the roll into whatever thickness suits your chopstick skills! If your knife isn’t awesome then it might help you to sparingly dab some of the vinegar/water onto it for better glide.

7) Repeat until everyone’s had a go at it (or alternatively until you run out).

Your yummy homemade Hoisin Sauce can either be spread onto the ingredients inside the maki, used as a dip or both. Whichever way you eat it, it totally makes the dish so don’t skimp 🙂

 How do you like your maki? I’d love some new ideas!