how to make sushi

I finally experimented for the first time with how to make nigiri sushi. I’ve been having a lot of trouble getting rice to the right consistency to form into balls. I think I got it alright though. I’m gonna upload a post about making the nigirizushi as soon as I get the photos off my camera, although frankly, there’s not much to see. It’s just as simple as cutting the fish into thin strips and placing it on the properly sized and formed rice balls.

Anyway, sorry for the long lag between posts (if I actually have any readers). I’ll be posting the instructions for nigiri soon!

Meanwhile, if you want to stay updated for my next posts, consider subscribing for email updates!

This past weekend, my parents came to visit. Now my parents both eat and enjoy fish (in fact, it’s the only meat my father WILL eat) but they were both squeamish about trying raw fish so I figured this would be a good weekend to try some vegetarian sushi. I had some fresh vegetables, but no specific recipe, so I thought I’d just roll them up in the sushi rice and nori and see what happened.

Verdict:

Absolutely Delicious!

Vegetarian sushi can have any variety of ingredients. What you see pictured here is avocado, cucumber and shredded carrot. Preparation was a snap.

I used baby carrots (prepared, no fuss, and usually fresher and better tasting) and shredded them to a medium-consistency. Then I used long chunks of cucumber, prepared as usual into 8′ strips. 

My parents loved the vegetarian sushi and I have to say, for something with no fish in it, it didn’t taste half bad.

I’ve been saving this post for a while because I made two batches of sushi last weekend: the California Rolls and the Crunchy Shrimp Rolls. This weekend, I’m preparing a vegetarian sushi extravaganza, so stay tuned for that! Here and now, however, are the California Rolls I made last weekend. Hope you enjoy!

Ingredients

Imitation Crab Sticks

Avocado

Cucumber

Sushi Rice

Nori

This is one of the easiest and quickest fusion rolls known to the world of sushi. Its origins stem from the late 1970′s as one of the very first, if not the very first example of uramaki, or inside-out roll. The outside of the roll is generally sprinkled with sesame seeds and then topped with flying fish roe, but I didn’t have any. Don’t worry, I’ll eventually re-do this recipe and get some prettier pictures. For now, enjoy the California Rolls I made last weekend, with both the inside and inside-out variations.

The California roll uses avocado, imitation crab sticks and cucumber. The avocado is often used as a fish substitute in sushi because of its oily texture. Cut the avocado into 8″ strips and prepare crab sticks according to the packaging. Allow the crab stick to cool after cooking.

On the top, you can see the 8″ strip of cucumber that must also be cut for the ingredients. Lay them all out on the nori and rice as shown. The way I have it pictured is for rolling up into an inside roll. California Rolls are usually rolled inside out and I have a picture of them below from the second California Roll.

Last weekend I tried making crunchy shrimp rolls. This was the first time I worked with shrimp, as well as the first time I had to tempura fry anything. They came out out, but I think they really needed some spicy sauce. Maybe it’s time to pick up some spicy mayonnaise or wasabi. I made some of these rolls both inside and uramaki but the uramaki came out rather poorly, so I’ll save that report for another time.

Ingredients

Tempura-battered shrimp

Green onion

Avocado

Sushi Rice

Nori

As usual, I began my preparations by cooking the sushi rice. While it was cooking, I prepared the other ingredients, which were tempura battered shrimp, green onion and avocado. Green onions can be found in your grocery section, very inexpensively. I got my bunch of green onions at the Asian supermarket for $.20. First I cut the green onion into a nice 8″ strip.

After I was done with the green onion, I prepared the avocado by slicing one half into thin slivers  and  arranged it into an 8″ strip. 

The avocado in the pictures above is slightly discolored. (e.g. the brown spots) This can be fixed by using fresher avocados and not refrigerating them for storage, as this will cause the discoloration.

The last step was to halve the tempura-fried shrimp and arrange them into an approximate 8″ strip on the nori. I like to leave the two end pieces of the shrimp in whole sections, or try to keep the tails intact because part of the effect of a crunchy shrimp roll is seeing the decorative tail.

After I laid all the ingredients on the roll (sorry no picture of that) , I just rolled it up like usual, cut into pieces, and served. I’m not especially crazy about the flavor of green onions, but lots of other people like it, and it was well-received. Notice the shrimp visible sticking out of the end of the roll.

Regular tuna rolls on the top left, tuna-cucumber rolls in the bottom right. Yum...

Yesterday I had a BBQ. I had 17 guests and it all went down pretty well. I served grilled hamburgers, shrimp and sushi rolls (tuna). They came out pretty well, all in all, although I think the rice was a little too wet. It wouldn’t stick together enough for nigiri, but it made a delicious tuna (maguro in Japanese!) roll!

After I made those, my friend Chloe made another batch and put some fresh cucumber in for some crunch. Here’s the recipe for the tuna rolls we made.

Ingredients:

Sushi Rice

Nori

Fresh  Tuna (about 4 oz will do)

Fresh Cucumber

I went to the supermarket and found a lovely piece of fresh tuna. I knew I didn’t need too large of a piece, so I only got a small chunk. Since you’re only buying one ingredient (the tuna) to make a tuna roll, don’t be afraid to splurge a little bit. Paying $20/lb. is NOT unreasonable for sashimi grade tuna.

Once I had my strips of tuna, it was an easy step to place them on my rolled out rice on the nori. If you if you don’t know how to use nori or about making sushi rice, you should look at my guides before you get to this point.

From here, it was a simple matter of cutting the large green roll into pieces. First I cut the roll in half, then doubled up the two halves and cut each of them into halves, then quarters. I wish I had a sharper knife. A sharp knife is very important for learning how to make sushi.

The proper way to divided up the maki roll into pieces, quick and efficient.

So as promised, I made Philadelphia rolls two nights ago. I’ve been having a hell of a time working with WordPress to get my pictures aligned, and I won’t go so far as to say I’ve been successful, but at least the sushi came out alright, pretty good for my first time.
Here’s the recipe I used.

Ingredients

4 oz fresh salmon
1 fresh cucumber
4 oz cream cheese
sushi rice
nori

First, I prepared sushi rice. For a quick guide on that, you can check my guide on making sushi rice.
While the rice was cooling, I cut up the other ingredients that are part of the Philadelphia Roll.

The first ingredient I prepared was the cucumber.

First I peeled the cucumber, then trimmed it into 8′ segments of about a quart-inch square.

I took a normal block of cream cheese and trimmed it into an 8′ strip with approximately the same dimensions as the cucumber strip. To help cut the cheese, use a sharp knife with the blade dipped in hot water

Then I took my fresh salmon filet and used a very sharp knife to again trim it into approximately 8′ segments. Usually smoked salmon is used, but raw salmon can be used if it’s very fresh and from a trustworthy vendor.

This is rather thickly spread rice shown here-it can be thinner.

When I finished trimming all my ingredients into their respective 8′ strips, the rice had finished cooking, so I began spreading it on the nori. The secret to spreading rice on the nori is dipping your hands in water before you try to spread the rice. Take a ball of rice and spread it out on the nori evenly. Leave about an inch and a half of bare nori on the top of the nori sheet.

Once the rice is prepared on the nori, you can place the ingredients. They should be near the bottom of the roll, like so.
From this point, all you have to do is roll it up. This is the point where a bamboo mat would have really come in handy to keep the rolling even and to pack the roll really tightly. In the end, it all worked out pretty well and I had a nice sushi roll.

You can see i used a piece of plastic wrap to help roll because I didn’t have a bamboo mat.
With that last step, the roll was ready to cut. I cut the roll with a slight sawing motion, with a sharp knife dipped in slightly warm water. I managed to get this roll into 8 pieces. I’m not a fan of wasabi, so I left it out, but the rolls were delicious all the same, and they looked just lovely.

Hey everyone! This page is going to document my journey to become a master sushi chef (I hope).

Welcome to the website. I hope to blog about each of my efforts in making sushi as I attempt them. This past weekend, I made my very first sushi. I will be loading the recipe shortly for Philadelphia Rolls, which was requested by my friend Linda. They came out really well and I can’t wait to share this first step of my journey.

Cheers

-David