Eat, drink, mermaid.
After googling “colored sushi rice” and seeing the myriad ways of making white rice all different colors, I was super excited to get to work on creating a vibrant, purple rice.
One idea that I stumbled upon was to finely grate and mash a few different vegetables to use to dye your rice. I figured that would be the closest idea to my love of keeping things simple and went for it.
That COLORRRRRRR obsessed
A few teaspoons of grated red cabbage + a squeeze of fresh lemon juice mixed in, provides a gorgeous, super pigmented purple color to your rice and is really easy to do.
All you need for this is:
- ~3 tablespoons of grated red cabbage, grated on the small holes and then chopped finely until it’s almost a mushy paste
- half of a lemon
- cooked sushi rice, cooled
- seasoned rice vinegar
- raw nori (I use SeaSnax raw sheets!)
- Filling for your rolls
The more common way to get a pink/purple hue in your rice was to use beet juice, but I liked the brighter purple that the cabbage gave. Using beet juice is pretty simple as well, but it will give you a light, pale pink.
I shredded a chunk of red cabbage on the small side of a box grater, and then used a sharp knife to chop/mash it even finer.
I squeezed in some fresh lemon juice and mixed it around, until it was saturated. Adding the lemon makes the color of the purple more vibrant and easier to mix into the rice. You’ll see it change from dark purple to bright purple as you squeeze the lemon in!
I then added this mix to a bowl of cooked sushi rice, after it had cooled off.
*Don’t use any metallic bowls or utensils when working with sushi rice, after it’s been cooked.
Paddle it around until your rice is a beautiful purple color. Add seasoned rice vinegar to it and mix that in as well.
*Always wait for your rice to cool down before adding rice vinegar to it.
Then make your sushi as per usual. 🙂
Of course I had to make onigirazu too! 💜💜
Since we are at the beach all the time once the water hits 65+ degrees (like every day), I love bringing a bunch of chopped up, ready to eat, fruit – and using it to make some special merbabe drinks as well.
You can never be too extra at the beach 😆.
An easy way to spruce up your bubbly:
- watermelon pieces
- raspberries
- strawberries
- cherries
- cucumber slices
- fresh mint
- any fruity or flowery syrup for extra flavor and sweetness (I used a lilac syrup I had made from fresh lilac blooms a few weeks ago)
Then add water, seltzer, champagne, kombucha, or sake…
Eat More Plants. 
One Response to “Eat, drink, mermaid.”
Love it! So so pretty. I am thinking a little grated beetroot would also work really well. And maybe some turmeric to make yellow rice, and parsley oil to make green. The possibilities are endless!!!