Have you ever tried any of the recipes on the Zojirushi site? This month I tried making as many of them as I could because I thought you readers might be interested! So in honor of Father’s Day (June 16th), International Sushi Day (June 18th) and Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Month, I made Diced Steak, Sausage Rolls, Chakin Sushi, and Green Vegetable Sushi from the Zojirushi recipe page. Fun! Let’s see how they turned out.
I changed up the Diced Steak a little bit to make it easier for me. The version you see above was pre-seared on my griddle to get it nice and browned before getting ready to sauté. 
The heat on the griddle is not as high as on my skillet, so if you have a skillet I would recommend using it instead. It took a little too long to achieve the fast sear I was looking for.
The Zojirushi recipe this was based on, the Diced Steak with Japanese Grilling Sauce, is more about making a sauce for dipping so it’s less important to have the meat be rare. My Diced Steak was further cooked with a butter and fresh garlic mix after searing, so I really only wanted it browned. This looks good, right?
I mean, this is pretty simple stuff and great for Father’s Day. Of course, I’m going to have mine with rice.
Next up for Father’s Day I tried the Smoky Sausage Roll from Zojirushi. After using the Pizza Dough course on my breadmaker as instructed, I divided the dough into 6 pieces and rolled them out into long pieces, roughly twice the length of my hot dogs.
Then I rolled them up! Make sure you give the dough plenty of time to rise before starting the baking—that part only takes about 12 minutes, so most of the time is spent waiting for the dough to rise properly. If you’ve done that, your hot dog rolls should bake perfectly. 
See that? Take them out as soon as you see it brown. The hot dogs get roasted at the same time. I mean, these guys look beautiful! 
This recipe is very easy and doesn’t really take much effort because the breadmaker does the hard part of preparing the dough. The only tricky part is working with the dough because it’s stretchy and you have to get used to shaping it. Mine don’t look so great, but once you wrap it around the hot dogs it doesn’t really seem to matter because they still bake nicely.
Serve with whatever condiments you like. 
As you probably already know, there are several sushi recipes on the Zojirushi site that I could have tried making, but I chose their Chakin-Sushi because it looked challenging. He-heh; I was right. The ingredients are simple enough, and most of it we had around the house anyway. I only had to go out to get the imitation crab. This recipe uses a lot of eggs (9 of them) so be forewarned. And the other thing is to find the longest green onions as you can. It’ll make it easier for you to tie your chakin sushi egg pouch.
The other thing is to make the egg crepe as thin as possible if you can. I think mine came out too thick, so practice and try to do better than I did.
Once you get the hang of it you’ll be fine. Don’t overstuff them, but if you follow the recipe you’ll have the correct amount of rice mixture for each one anyway. And like I said—thin egg crepes allow you to make the pouches easier, and a longer green onion stalk gives you more to tie it with. BTW, the flavoring was excellent with this recipe, and it still came out looking halfway decent!
My last Zojirushi recipe was the Green Vegetable Sushi to celebrate not only International Sushi Day, but also Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Month. This recipe seems so simple (and it is) but it brings out the true flavor of sushi rice and its sweet vinegary aroma. If you’re a fan I would recommend it because it packs a lot of flavor and it’s so light and refreshing. Wait a second..nuts and raisins!? Trust me, it all works out in the end.
Make your sushi rice in an unfinished wooden salad bowl, or if you have a Japanese hangiri like this one, use it to absorb the moisture of the rice and retain the heat so that it doesn’t get watery when you toss it with the rice vinegar dressing. Toss the rice with your paddle, chopping it vertically and turning it over in sections rather than stirring.
Since I’m more of a meat/fish eater I wasn’t sure I would like this all-veggie recipe but it was really tasty and satisfying. I think the minced ginger helps to bring it to life, and I didn’t mind the raisins and chopped nuts at all. It’s kind of more like a salad than sushi. It just looks so healthy, doesn’t it?
How many Zojirushi recipes have you tried? If you haven’t tried any yet, what are you waiting for? The recipes are a great way to introduce you to new ways of using your Zojirushi product, and you learn a lot about different styles of cooking too.
Products used in this post: Home Bakery Maestro® Breadmaker BB-SSC10, Rice Cooker & Warmer NP-HCC10, Gourmet Sizzler® Electric Griddle EA-DCC10
Please note that the Garlic Butter Cube Steak was not tested by Zojirushi America.
All images by Bert Tanimoto ©2024
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