Wasabi-flavored capelin roe

For Thanksgiving I made a turkey. But for the weekend after Thanksgiving, I went all out and made gunkan maku-zushi, or battleship sushi. This type of sushi is made with a small, golf-ball-sized amount of rice, a thin strip of nori paper, and the sushi itself. You usually see battleship sushi served for pretty gooey materials.

This is pretty easy to make. For the orange roe I used capelin roe from Daruma Japanese grocery store. I then rolled a single strip of nori into a tube and filled half of it with rice, and the other half with the roe. Finally, I topped it with a quail egg (also from Daruma).

Working with the egg yolks isn’t hard, but you have to be careful. First crack the shell. There’s a thin membrane inside that isn’t present in a chicken egg. Then you separate the white from the yolk, which can be tricky. The white isn’t attractive to serve to your guests, so get as much of it out as possible. Make a small indentation on your roe with a spoon, and slide the egg yolk on.

As an alternative, I bought green, wasabi-spiced capelin roe at Trader Joe’s, and made it. My chief sushi taster loved it.