Dukan Riceless Temaki (Sushi Handrolls)

Riceless Temaki Sushi Handrolls

We loved this recipe...and you can use a lot of different ingredients to make a temaki or handroll and they are very easy to make once you get the rolling/tucking technique down.

We don't recommend anything too wet that may soak through your nori or seaweed wrapper.

Ever since I can remember, my grandmother (and later all the female grandchildren) always rolled makizushi for New Year's Eve (and Day) -- a traditional "round" roll and we always used an odd number of ingredients for good luck.  Our makizushi usually consisted of sliced shiitake mushrooms, kampyo (strips of dried gourd reconstituted in the same water you boiled the shiitake mushrooms), egg omelet cut into strips, unagi (eel), dried ebi (shrimp) -- both colors -- red and green and carrots.

This year we didn't make sushi -- we knew we would most likely eat just one piece if we did make sushi.  So, on New Year's Day we decided to make some Riceless Temaki Handrolls with nori (seaweed wrapper), poke (seasoned raw fish) and an egg omelet made with tobiko or fish eggs.  You can really use a lot of different ingredients in a handroll.  We have lots of tobiko in our freezer and it was a PP day.  If it were a PV day, we would have definitely added either cucumbers, sprouts, seasoned lettuce, enoki mushrooms or other veggies.   Other items you can use - our kamaboko dip (recipe coming!), imitation crab, etc.)

Nori -- Seaweed wrap

Regarding nori (seaweed wrapper), check the package when purchasing -- there's usually sushi nori and musubi or omusubi (rice ball) nori.  We find the musubi nori a little chewier.  Some stores also sell already cut temaki (handroll) nori but if you buy the sushi nori, you can easily cut your nori in half for handrolls.  We don't usually buy Korean nori, but it is very tasty -- we've noticed it's stickier.  Try not to buy super cheap nori, those are generally very thin and break easily.  Most nori will have a shiny side and a ridged side.  We usually place the shiny side out.  As far as we can tell, nori or seaweed is Dukan and Paleo friendly.

Nori cut in half for handroll, front piece is the shiny side, back piece
is the ridged side.

If you've never rolled a handroll, it's fairly easy once you get the hang of it.  This is the first time we've posted a video on Blogger, so we're hoping it works...it's a short, simple tutorial on how to roll a handroll (it's posted just before the recipe below).

Place your omelet piece down at an angle facing the left

Place some poke on the omelet

Pick up the nori and hold in your left hand, use your right hand to push
left bottom corner up and start to tuck under the right side of the
omelet.

Keep rolling and tucking carefully.  It's one of those -- be firm but gentle.
Too firm and you'll smash everything up, too gentle and your handroll
will be too loose.  It may take you a couple of tries, but almost anyone
can learn to make a handroll!  Don't give up!

RECIPE:
Makes 4 handrolls
Prep time: 10-20 minutes
Roll Time: once you get the hang of it, rolling won't take long at all

1/8 lb. Ahi Limu Poke (Seasoned raw tuna with seaweed)
1/8 lb. Salmon Poke (Seasoned raw salmon)
2 full sheets of nori cut in half
2 eggs
1 T. tobiko (fish eggs) - this is optional, these are usually on the salty side for us, so we didn't add anything else to the eggs, but if you're making just a plain omelet or some other kind of omelet, you may want to season it -- even with hot sauce if you'd like

Beat eggs in a bowl (be sure to get some air in there!).  Add tobiko and mix.  Fry omelet in a pan over medium heat -- cook they way you like them.  We don't like our eggs runny, so we usually cook them a little more well done.  We used non stick spray in our pan but if we were making a true Paleo meal, we probably would have used a little bit of bacon grease or a small amount of olive oil.

Remove egg from pan and cut into 4 pieces (see photo above).  If your egg is longer than the nori wrapper, fold your egg.

We rolled two handrolls at a time for the photo taking session but normally we roll one at a time and we usually lay all the ingredients on one plate and roll as we eat...this way your nori doesn't get soggy -- it ends up chewier and for us, a little more difficult to eat.  If soggy nori doesn't bother you, go ahead and wrap them all before eating...it's really up to you.

Place your egg on the left side of the nori, angled to the left.  Place some poke on the egg.  Pick up your nori carefully and hold in your left hand (see photo above).  With your right hand, start rolling and tucking the left bottom corner of your nori under the egg.  Keep rolling and tucking until you have just the bottom right corner of the roll sticking out.  Dab a little water on the corner and close your sushi.

As mentioned above, rolling sushi is one of those things where you have to have a firm, but gentle touch.  Too firm will smash everything and too gentle will result in a loose handroll that will fall apart with the first bite or sooner.  Practice before you roll for a party!  Handroll parties are fun too!

Enjoy...we always do!

Dukan Cedar Wrapped Salmon

Cedar Wrapped Salmon - Can't remember why we didn't
take a photo of the salmon on a plate

Happy New Year again!  Hope everyone had a safe New Year's Eve and a restful New Year's Day.  Our local paper (as with probably most newspapers around the world) had an entire issue on New Year's Resolutions -- how to set them and keep to your goals.  Of course, one of the top resolutions listed is to lose weight (and live a healthier life).

If this is your first time to our blog and you've been led here after a Google search on the Dukan or Paleo diets, welcome!  We hope our recipes help in your health goals for the rest of your life :-)  We have to admit, New Year's Eve (a big eating day here in Hawaii and probably many other places around the world) we cheated.  Of course, gained some weight due to the cheating but yesterday we managed to get back on the healthy eating horse and not cheat one bit.  We're pretty surprised.  The first time we started the Dukan diet, after a cheat meal, it was SO HARD to eat healthy again.  After cheating on New Year's Eve, we discussed the weight gain we would both experience, came to terms with it and vowed to eat a strict PP diet the next day.   If we can do it, so can you!  Good luck!

On with the recipe...we have some recipes from the end of the year to post, a couple of them would be classified as Celebration Meals, but we'll start out with a recipe that is not only Dukan Cruise but Paleo - ish too.

We loved this recipe!

We're not really into smokey flavors, but once in a while we enjoy something like this.  This reminded us of a dish we had in Cowichan on the island of Vancouver, BC.  We really didn't put much thought into this dish...it was a last minute decision.  The day before we were at the poke (seasoned raw fish) counter buying poke for our lunch when we spotted these Fire and Flavor Cedar Wraps.  We did a double take, thought it would be interesting to try but wanted to research if something like this could be used during Dukan.  Well, we didn't find anything specific to Cedar Wraps, so the next day (Christmas Eve), after work we dashed into the grocery store and bought one pack.

They are easy, easy to use.  You soak them for about 10 minutes in water, then wrap whatever you want to grill or bake in the wrap, tie with the string provided and you're ready to cook.  For our first try, we decided to bake salmon in the oven.  It was a PP day, so no veggies were added.  Our salmon for the most part came out moist (except for the edges -- we cut our salmon too large).  After we wrapped the salmon, we realized we forgot to add dill, but oh wells, next time.  We have four more wraps from this package -- not sure if we'll do an Asian Salmon or a chicken in the last four wraps.

As the male half of this couple put it, if you're not into smokey flavors, it's nothing to get excited about but it did provide something different for us to eat.   This was a very mild flavored dish...we didn't want to overpower it with seasonings -- we wanted to taste the cedar the first time around.

We are classifying this recipe as a Dukan and Paleo - ish recipe.

NOTE: We've never used Cedar Planks, so we can't comment on whether the convenience of the wraps are worth not using Cedar Planks.

RECIPE:
Serves 2-4 (two if you're in Cruise or on the Paleo Diet, four if you're in Consolidation and not on the Paleo diet)
Prep Time: 10 minutes to soak the wraps and about 10 minutes to prep and wrap your food
Bake Time: 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on how thick your salmon pieces are

4 pieces of salmon (wild caught if you're on Paleo), in total ours weighed about 1 lb
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil
lemon slices and fresh lemon juice (4 slices, one for each piece of salmon, plus lemon juice to squeeze on your salmon)

If you have fresh dill (or even dried dill) you may want to sprinkle some on.  We wanted to try it with dill, but forgot to add it on the salmon.

Soak your wraps in water for 10 or more minutes.  Be sure to keep them submerged.  In the meantime, rinse and pat dry your salmon.  Dab a little olive oil on both sides of your salmon.  Salt and pepper your salmon.  Let sit for 5 minutes.  Squeeze a little fresh lemon juice over your fish -- we seasoned both sides of the salmon.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Wrap each salmon in a cedar wrap and tie (directions are provided).   Place in pan (we used a foiled lined pan for easy clean up) and bake for 15-20 minutes or until salmon is cooked through.

If you're adding veggies to your wrap, place them on top of your fish or chicken or whatever you decide to wrap.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Vietnamese Fish

Vietnamese Fish

We liked this recipe....it was very tasty.

We love Vietnamese food and this dish was tasty, but it didn't make us go "wow".  We would definitely make this again and might try it with chicken instead of fish since the recipe we found was made with chicken.  We pretty much followed the recipe almost to the tee, except we omitted the oil and we only put tomatoes in one envelope since the male half of this couple doesn't like tomatoes.

We ate this as is...no starch or starch replacement.  On a celebration day, we would've eaten this with some Vietnamese noodles.  It is a very light dish and easy to make.

RECIPE:
Serves 2
Prep Time: 15-20 minutes
Bake Time: 15 minutes or until fish is cooked through

1 lb. marlin, cut into cubes
pepper
kosher salt
1/2 tomato, dices
1 t. ginger, minced
2 green onions, finely sliced
2 T. fish sauce (Vietnamese)
a pinch of natural sweetener
fresh chopped cilantro for garnish

Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.  Sprinkle cubes of fish with pepper and salt, mix.  In a bowl, combine tomatoes, ginger, green onion, fish sauce and sugar, then toss with fish.  Prepare two large pieces of parchment paper.  We like to fold our parchment in half, then cut a heart shape out of it (half a heart so when you open it you have a full heart).  Place half the fish mixture in each of the parchment and fold to seal.  Place both packages on a sheet pan and bake for 15 minutes or until fish is cooked, let sit for 5 minutes before opening packet.  Open packets carefully, top with fresh chopped cilantro and serve either by itself or over Vietnamese noodles. (you don't have to use as much cilantro as we did, we just love cilantro.)

Enjoy!

Dukan Korean Inspired Fish

Korean Inspired Fish

We liked this recipe, we probably would have liked it better if it were less salty.

Korean food is very popular in Hawaii and one of our friends started telling everyone how much she loves Korean food.  She made us hungry for some Korean food and one our favorite dishes is Fish Jun.  Fish Jun is normally just fish with salt and pepper dipped in an egg batter and fried served with a dipping sauce.  We decided to try making Fish Jun with a Meat Jun recipe.  We used Sam Choy, a local Hawaiian  chef's meat jun marinade for our recipe.  If you like your food saltier, use all soy sauce instead of the 1/8 c. soy sauce and 1/8 c. water.  We always use low sodium soy sauce, but that is still too salty for us.

We also decided to try this recipe without the flour, even though in consolidation we would have use oat bran ground into flour or wheat flour.

RECIPE:
Serves 2-3
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time - 15-20 minutes

3/4 pound white fish, we used a marlin, you'll want to cut your fish into thinner slices if it isn't thin already
1/8 c. low sodium soy sauce
1/8 c. water
2 T. sesame oil
1 green onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 eggs, beaten

Dipping sauce:
1/8 c. low sodium soy sauce
1/8 c. water
1 stalk green onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 t. ground sesame seeds or 1/8 t. sesame oil

Mix the soy sauce, water, sesame oil, green onion and garlic in a bowl.  You can either marinate your fish for an hour or dip your fish in the sauce, then in the egg batter, then fry in a pan sprayed lightly with olive oil spray.   The fish cooks fast, so you'll want to mix your dipping sauce ahead of time.  We served our fish on whole wheat sandwich thins so we used the dipping sauce as a sandwich dip sauce.

Enjoy!

Dukan Chinese Fish

Chinese Fish

We liked this recipe.

We found this recipe on allrecipes.com.  It's titled "Chinese Fish"...that's it.  The recipe is simple and has a very light taste.  We omitted the cooking oil and sesame oil from the recipe to make it Dukan.  Next time we'll try this recipe with Chinese vinegar instead of cider vinegar and a little more red pepper flakes.

The recipe calls for orange roughy, but we had some salmon in the fridge so we tried this with salmon.  A thinner fish would probably work better that our thicker cuts of salmon.

RECIPE:
Serves 4
Prep Time: 5-10 minutes
Cook Time: 8 minutes

4 pieces salmon filets or orange roughy
1 c. water
2 t. cider vinegar
2 t. low sodium shoyu (soy sauce)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 t. Chinese five-spice powder
1/8 t. crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 t. kosher salt
1/4 t. ground ginger

Rinse and pat dry fish.  In a large non-stick skillet, cook fish for approximately 2 minutes (spray pan lightly with olive oil spray).  Turn and cook for 2 more minutes.  Add the other ingredients (pre-measure your dry ingredients).  Cover and simmer for 4 minutes or until fish is cooked.

Enjoy!

Dukan Baked Tilapia

RECIPE RATING:
We actually enjoyed this.

Baked Tilapia

We were a bit skeptical about using oat bran as a coating even though other Dukan-ers have used it successfully.  It just didn't sound appetizing.  We found a recipe for Baked Tilapia on a low fat recipe website which we Dukan'd by changing the breadcrumbs out for oat bran and adding some italian seasoning instead of just oregano as the recipe called for.

This recipe is simple and you can use a variety of spices...not just italian seasoning.   You can also use different types of fish for this recipe.

RECIPE
Serves 2
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Bake Time: 8-12 minutes (425 degrees Fahrenheit)

4 tilapia filets (ours were very thin)
1/2 c. fine oat bran (if you have a grinder, grind your oat bran up)
1/4 c. parmesan cheese, grated (the kind from the can)
1 t. garlic powder or garlic salt
1 t. italian seasoning (next time we will use 2 t..we love this stuff)

Mix all dry ingredients (we put our mixture on a plate).  Rinse and pat dry fish.  Spray fish lightly with olive oil spray, coat fish with oat bran mixture, spray fish lightly again, coat one more time with oat bran mixture.  Place coated fish in a foil lined pan (spray foil lightly with olive oil spray).  We sprayed our coated fish lightly.  Bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 8-12 minutes or until fish flakes easily.

We sprayed our fish a little too much so some sections were soggy, but it still tasted great.

Enjoy!

Dukan Fish With Wine and Capers

RECIPE RATING:
HE SAID: Good.
SHE SAID: Very tasty, should've used firmer fish.

Fish with Wine and Capers

We found this recipe on Hawaiian Electric's recipe website and it sounded great and easy...we just had to try it.  We didn't serve this one Tofu Shirataki noodles since we just had noodles last night, but we're sure it would have tasted great on the angel hair shaped noodles.

We also only had tilapia fillets in the fridge and didn't want to run out to buy ahi, but if we make this again we will definitely used a firm fish versus a soft, flakey fish like tilapia.  It still tasted great, it just looked like a pile of mush.   This was a nice light, yet tasty lunch.  Another note, we omitted the sun-dried tomatoes since the only ones we could find are in oil.

RECIPE:
Serves 2
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes

1 lb. ahi fillet or other firm fish (we used tilapia - not a good idea), cut into cubes or medallions
1/2 red onion, diced (or sliced)
1 clove garlic, minced
3 T. white wine
2 T. capers
1/2 t. kosher salt
1 T. parsley, minced
1/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese

Spray pan with a small bit of olive oil spray and saute onions and garlic until golden brown.  Remove onions and garlic from pan.  Spray pan lightly again and saute fish for a couple of minute or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork.  Add onions and garlic back to pan with wine, capers, salt and cheese.  Toss gently.  Garnish with parsley.

Enjoy!

Dukan Foil Packet Wasabi Salmon

RECIPE RATING:
HE SAID: Good, moist.
SHE SAID: Very good!  Gotta work on the texture though, a little too thick.

Foil Packet Wasabi Salmon

Baking fish in a mayonnaise based sauce is very popular in Hawaii.  We've had it all sorts of ways - mayo with lemon, mayo with portuguese or chinese sausage and green onions, etc.  All ways have been tasty and moist.

Decided to have salmon today, but didn't know what kind of sauce to make it in and we came up with a wasabi, fat free sour cream based sauce, well not really a sauce, more like a cream to put on top of our salmon.  We've also missed our foil packet fish recipes we used to make in our crock pot and since the crock pot is currently cooking dinner, we decided to throw the foil packets in the oven.

This cream is similar to a simple Japanese dipping sauce where they mix mayonnaise with shoyu (soy sauce).  It's simple and tasty although it did come out a bit too thick, but not bad.

RECIPE:
Serves 2
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Bake Time: 20 minutes (depending on how well done you like your fish)

2 salmon filets (washed and patted dry)
1/2 c. fat free sour cream
1/8 c. shoyu (soy sauce) - we used low sodium
2-3 t. wasabi (if you can get the real thing, that's best!)
1 T. rice wine vinegar
1 t. natural sweetener
1 T. ground sesame
1 t. black sesame seeds (optional)
foil

Place salmon filets in foil.  Mix sour cream, then add the rest of the ingredients in.  Cover salmon with cream sauce.  Fold foil around salmon making sure all seams are facing up.  Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately 20 minutes (depending on how well done you like your fish and how thick your fish is).  Sprinkle black sesame seeds on finished dish for garnish (optional).

Enjoy!