Social media has been obsessed with the salmon rice bowl recipe that uses a single ice cube, some basic pantry ingredients and recycled leftovers. Devised by lifestyle influencer Emily Mariko the easy salmon rice bowl recipe is basically a deconstructed sushi and needs almost no extra prep. Mariko’s video has more than 4 million views on Tik Tok and more than 79,000 likes on Instagram.
In fact, her salmon bowl recipe made Mariko’s Tik Tok follower/fan count escalate from 70,000 to 5.6 million because people just can’t seem to get enough of this effortless recipe. The Japanese-American influencer uses rice, leftover salmon, soy sauce, Kewpie mayo (an egg yolk mayonnaise), Sriracha, avocado to make her bowl and tops it with crunchy, roasted seaweed and kimchi — so, essentially sushi staples.
But what really intrigues her followers is obviously her ‘ice in the rice’ hack which though ingenious isn’t crucial to this recipe since it can just be replaced with some water to add some moisture.
Here’s Mariko’s original recipe
1) Take a chunk of salmon and flake it (raze it down to a mash) using a fork. Add some leftover rice on top and put a single ice cube in the middle of the plate/bowl (a common Tik Tok hack to re-heat leftover rice; the ice cube does NOT melt but makes the rice fluffier)
2) Cover the bowl with a tissue and put it in the microwave for two minutes.
3) Remove the bowl from the microwave, discard the tissue and add soy sauce, mayonnaise and sriracha. Mix well
4) Top it with some avocado (either scoop out a whole one or half, depending on how much you need) and sesame seeds. Also, add some kimchi on the side. Since her first video Mariko has recreated the bowl with other sides such as takuan (a yellow pickled daikon radish) instead of kimchi.
A recipe developer’s take on the recipe
@veryhungrygreek/InstagramMariko’s ASMR-inducing lunch was quickly deemed the easiest way to ace a deconstructed sushi, given that it also uses a Nori sheet, avocado, sriracha and mayo (although the recipe is meant for cold leftover rice, you can easily replace it with the gourmet sushi rice). Kolkata already has a few eateries that are offering deconstructed sushi bowls or even DIY sushi kits that you can use at home.
A salmon rice bowl, topped with avocados
@happypiefinds/InstagramShubhangi Saraf’s Kolkata-based cloud kitchen The Salad Place serves a deconstructed sushi salad. “The deconstructed sushi salad is one of our top-sellers, it has everything that usually goes in traditional sushi, like mushroom, wasabi, Japanese mayo, nori sheets, pickled ginger. Our version is a little healthier since we use brown rice instead of white rice and it’s all assembled in a bowl,” Saraf tells us.
If you’re considering a DIY salmon rice bowl, simply source your own fresh salmon and opt for a DIY sushi kit. La Macario Cafe at Elgin Road offers DIY sushi kits featuring uncooked sushi rice, nori sheet, wasabi, rice vinegar, soy sauce, pickled ginger etc and come in different flavours like sriracha/veggies or asparagus/cream cheese. Besides the wasabi and pickled sides, almost everything has a shelf life of at least a month and it’s also travel-friendly. Price starts from Rs 645.
Chefling is another label that offers easy-to-assemble, pre-portioned DIY sushi kits that are quite elaborate (it even has sushi roller mats!). The kits feature 11-12 non-perishable items for vegetarian sushi that are all authentically sourced. The Mumbai-based label delivers pan-India and the kits are priced between Rs 1,149 and Rs 2,049.
