Meals, day 10-- making sushi

I have been wanting to try sushi making for a long time. I loooooove sushi, but it's expensive. The reason why I've never tried before is I thought it was too tricky. But a friend recently reassured me; she said it wasn't hard at all and she frequently sends her husband to work with a sushi lunch. So I thought I'd try it! And I soon found she was right; Sushi is easy as making a sandwich. THe only time-intense part is making the rice, but mostly you're just letting that sit, and so it's at least not time-absorbing; you can do other things while you wait for the rice to be ready.

Ingredients:

short-grained white rice (3 cups)

Water (3 1/3 cups)

step 1: rinse the rice. put the rice in a bowl, fill it with water, and scrunch the rice together all over with your hands. Pour off the water, repeat 3-4 times until the water is fairly clear.

Step 2: Put water in the rice again (until rice is submerged)and set aside for 30 minutes or more.

Step 3: Pour off the water again. Add the 3 1/3 cups of water back in. Put on the stove, on low until simmering (or low boil); simmer for 12-15 minutes. Try not to take the lid off...if you have to peek to see if it's simmering, do it quickly and try to do it only once or twice.

Step 4: After rice has simmered 12-15 minutes, turn stove off. Leave top on,let the rice sit another 15 minutes.


While this is happening put these ingredients in a saucepan:



rice vinegar (1/2 cup)

salt (1 tbsp)

Sugar (1/4 cup)

you can also add 1/2 tb of powdered dashi (japanese fish broth)if you want.

Do not boil. Just heat until the salt and sugar are melted.


take the rice and put it in a plastic or wood bowl. Pour the vinegar in while you "stir" the rice, by taking a wooden or plastic spoon and making "slicing" motions into the rice. Don't stir, don't smush the rice,just use the edge of the wooden spoon to "slice stir" the vinegar into the rice and then keep stirring until it's room temperature.

While this is going on, the rice is supposed to be fanned. The recipe I read called for hand-fanning... instead, we use a small electric fan and aim it at the bowl.

once the rice is room temperature, you can stop fanning and start rolling!


For the sushi-making part (the funnest part, IMO)

you need bamboo sushi mats (can find at any aisian food store)

Nori (roasted seaweed sheets- can also find at any aisian food store, and also the grocery store, but it's more expensive there)

Sesame seeds (you can roast these in the oven to make them more delicious)

And whatever you want to put on the inside. For our first attemtps we did two different kinds. For one, we took tuna fish (in a can) and just mixed it with mayo like we'd do for any tuna sandwich. For the other we did avacado, fake crab meat, and cucumber. Slice any solid ingredients into long, thin, rods.


Rolling a sushi roll is fun. you take the nori and place it shiny-side down on the mat. You take the sushi rice and glop it onto the nori,then pat it and spread it until it's about 1/4" thick over the nori sheet, leaving about an inch free on the bottom edge. You take your ingredients and lay them across the top edge of the sheet of nori-with-rice, leaving about an inch of room at the top. And then you roll it up, using the bamboo mat as a shaper, and to squeeze it tight. The tighter the roll, the more it'll stay together after it's sliced.



The sesame seeds can be sprinkled over the rice before the ingredients are put on.



the whole thing will stay firmly stuck together after you're done rolling, you can take it out, layit on a cutting board,and slice it up!


And then you have yummy sushi!



Condiments: Pickled ginger, Wasabe, and soy sauce, of course! I also like tempura dipping sauce, adds a little extra kick.