Sushi

Next thing I tried was sushi. I mostly followed Adrienne Scheck’s great image tutorial, but I’ll write down what I did anyway — if only to make future generation wonder forever why people from this century wrote the same thing again and again even though they had internet. And for the numbers, of course. Them crazy ‘mericans keep using those totally dorky imperial measurements. Get with the program already, guys!

For 3 people, wash about 450 gram of sushi rice (wash & rinse multiple times). Then boil in about 600 ml water until dry which is about 10 minutes (be careful not to burn the rice). Leave it to cool about 15 minutes. In the meantime, make a mixture made of 6 table spoons rice vinegar, 1 big tablespoon sugar, and a few tablespoons of salt. Use a big wooden spoon to put the rice in a large, shallow bowl (as much as possible shaped like a hangiri), and sprinkle the mixture over the rice before folding the rice over itself. Cool it for a good shiny sushi rice. I used a blowdryer set to cold. The smile on my face while I was blowdrying a big bowl of rice got me some funny looks from my girlfriend.

On a bamboo sushi mat, lay down a sheet of nori (seaweed). On it, form a thin layer of rice by pushing with your fingers. Use a bowl of cold water to continuously un-stick your fingers. Leave a cm or two on the top part. Now, time to have fun filling it — you’re free to do whatever you want here. As this was a first, I didn’t go all out on really good fresh fish, instead I used a couple of kinds of smoked raw fish, and I did a veggie one – avocado and cucumber, lined with wasabi and mayonaise. Use the mat to roll everything up, then cut the roll. Use the sharpest knife you can find and sharpen it some more before you use it. After cutting the roll, put up the next sheet of seaweed and repeat with new ingredients.

Serve the sushi rolls on a flat platter with japanese soy sauce and wasabi alongside it.

For a first time my rolls turned out pretty nice! See the photo. Iron chef’s got nothing on me! Now I’ll need Justin’s ninja skills to grow.