experimenting with sushi...

some things I've learned.

1) roasted sesame seeds make everything just that much better.

2) Tempura veggies (zuchini, eggplant, mushroom) are delicious in sushi. Buy tempura batter, mix it up, mix some veggies cut in this slices into it and fry. So yummy inside a sushi roll especially with mirin sauce.

3) Speaking of which: Mirin Sauce. 1/4 cup mirin, 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/8 cup sugar, boiled until it gets a little thicker. Mirin is something you can buy at any Asian food store. This is the sauce that goes on Unagi sushi, which is my absolute favorite but it's impossible to make at home without being really really yucky. At least so far.

4) Put as thin a layer of rice on the nori sheet as possible. Much yummier this way.

5) My previous sushi recipe had too much seasoning. Halve everything, and that's about as much as you need for the 3-cup recipe.

6) The secret is in the rice. For making great sushi rice: 1) Rinse as much as you can stand. Rinse until the water runs clear. 2) Drain as much as you possibly can when you're done rinsing, then let it sit for at least 15 minutes. 3) When you add water to the rice for the cooking, just barely cover the rice with water. 4)Do not let it cook too long! After the water is boiling, turn it down to simmer and then let it cook 10-15 minutes, or until the grains are soft but not slushy or goopey. 5) The point of fluffing is to seperate the rice grains from each other so you're not biting down on a dense glutinous mass when you eat your sushi. The secret is to sort of "stir" from underneath... take the spoon and dig it "under" the rice, lift up quickly, let it fall back into the bowl... thus "fluffing." Don't stir the way you'd stir bread dough, sqooshing all the rice grains together. Do all you can not to "squoosh" but to sort of aerate your rice. And use a fan if you've got one.. point it into the bowl toward your rice as you're fluffing.


Today I'm trying a new sauce recipe: 1/4 cup japanese mayo (found at any asian food store), 1 tb mirin sauce, 1/2 tb rice vinegar, 1/2 tb roe fish eggs and 1 tsp asian chili sauce. I'll tell you how it turns out! I'm hoping it'll make that sweet-spicy orange sauce that is so yummy on sushi.