Cantaloupe and Strawberry Frushi

Using a rice strainer, colander, or general purpose sifter; thoroughly clean off the rice being used with cold water. This can be achieved by rinsing water over the rice, until the water runs clear.

I didn't really want this to be a lengthy tutorial on how to cook the perfect sushi rice (or short-grain, white rice). There's about a dozen different techniques out there, and I'm sure all of them produce amazing results. The important thing to note here is, you don't really need "perfect" sushi rice to make this dish. We're wrapping fruit, not seafood — so the acidic balance and stickiness doesn't have to be perfect. The amount I'm using here (3/4 US "cup" or 1 Japanese "go" is the smallest amount that my rice cooker makes and I'm using the basic 1:1 water to rice ratio, and letting the rice cooker do it's thing. Once the rice cooker is done, dump the rice into a separate bowl and allow to cool slightly.

Dissolve the sugar into the rice vinegar. Using a wooden paddle, mix in the rice vinegar and Monin® Coconut Purée into the rice, and then allow the rice to continue cooling to room temperature.

Ideally, all the fruit should be about the same size. A matchstick shape that's 1/4 to 1/3 inches thick by 1 to 4 inches long works best — but exact dimensions aren't important. We'll be lining the fruit up, end on end, across the length of the soy wrapper. If all the fruit is cut about the same size, the center of the frushi pieces will be even and hold together better. Ideally, 4 inch "matchsticks" of fruit work best, because that's about how big a standard soy wrapper is.

We're going to spread about 1/4 (US) cup of rice onto each soy wrapper. The key here is getting an even coating of rice all over the entire sheet of soy wrapper. Leave around a 1/4 inch of the soy wrapper empty… when we roll the wrapper up, this extra overlap will help seal the frushi rolls. It's probably easiest to use your fingers to press the rice down and make sure the rice height is even across the entire sheet. Using light duty poly food service gloves works well, or just your (clean) fingers, moistened with a little water (so the rice doesn't stick to your fingers as much). If you're not working with poly gloves, you may want to put down a flexible non-stick mat or even some plastic wrap under the soy wrapper. This will help with rolling and packing the Frushi roll in a later step.

Line the fruit up across the center of the soy wrapper, on top of the rice, from end to end. This is what ends up being the center of the frushi, but it's easy to go a little overboard with fruit. Unlike a burrito, we can't overstuff this because the rice is porous and will break away if overstuffed. Also, if there's too much fruit in the center, the soy wrapper won't roll up completely. This is also where a single piece of fruit that is cut the entire length of the soy wrapper comes in handy. If you have fruit pieces that aren't as long as the entire length of the soy wrapper, just place the fruit end to end in a line, and then offset the line slightly with the next row of fruit. For this Cantaloupe and Strawberry Frushi, three or four lines of fruit across the wrapper should be good.

Starting at the end that's closest to you, carefully roll up the soy wrapper to meet the fruit, and then continue rolling the wrapper until a cylinder is formed with the fruit in the middle. That tiny 1/4 inch overlap of soy wrapper we left in a previous step, will help seal the frushi roll. Just moisten the wrapper with a small amount of water (like a stamp), and press the overlapped soy wrapper down onto the other end. Using your hands, compress the frushi roll slightly (gently squeeze the roll) to compact the rice — and get the rice "tube" into as much of a cylindrical shape as possible. Don't squeeze too hard though, or the rice will break down and fruit juice might start seeping into the rice.

Using a long, slender knife (if you have one) cut the roll into four or five pieces. If you've used long fruit matchsticks, the frushi may be able to be plated "standing up". With smaller matchsticks of fruit, cutting into the roll will create tiny slices of fruit that fall out of the individual rolls, in which case, it's easier to plate the slices laying on their side, and just pressing the tiny pieces of fruit back into the roll.