Smoked Salmon and cucumber maki

Do you love smoked salmon? Here is an easy way to combine it with rice, cucumber and cream cheese to make an easy light lunch or snack.

Start by washing the rice in a fine colander until the water runs clear. It is important to do this as otherwise your rice will be stodgy.
Boil the rice with a little salt and 1 cup of water for about 15 mins. Turn the heat off and let it sit for another 10 mins or so.
Cool the rice by removing it from the pan and scraping it into a bowl. Add 1 tbsp of cider vinegar and stir it well. Traditionally you dissolve a little sugar in tepid rice vinegar but as Brent is diabetic I don’t add this. Also cider vinegar is alkaline and helps to keep inflammation down. Let the rice sit until totally cold.
Slice half a cucumber lengthwise. You can use a knife for thicker slicer or a vegetable peeler for very thin slices. Discard the first slices as they are just peel.
Take a bamboo mat and cover it with a sheet of nori, shiny side down. Take a little rice with wet hands and spread it over the bottom half of the nori sheet. Leave about 1.5 cm from each side edge without rice. Make the rice thinly spread as otherwise your maki will not be bite size.
Take two thick cucumber slices or 4 thin cucumber slices and cover the rice with them.

Cut a nori sheet to the shape of the rice and cucumber. Put it on a chopping board and spread it with about 1 tbsp of cream cheese. Place it on top of the cucumber and rice.

Roll the maki pressing firmly down on the bamboo mat and use a little water on a brush to seal the edge.
Take a sharp knife, wet it and cut the extremities off. Divide the sushi roll in about 5 or 6 equal parts. Again, I prefer smaller bites so don’t cut it too big as you don’t want your mouth too full.
Repeat for the other 5 sheets of nori and serve with pickled ginger, soya sauce and wasabi.