how to make sushi

Posts Tagged ‘how to make sushi’

Salmon: It’s baked, broiled, fried, and smoked. It’s served as an entree by itself, over salads, in sandwich rolls…and in sushi. I’ve already featured salmon previously in my very first recipe on this site, when I learned how to make Philadelphia Rolls, but this time, let’s get way simple. We’re going to get as simple as you can for a sushi recipe without going to just rice and fish.

You will need:

Sashimi-Grade Salmon

Sushi Rice

Nori

Avocado, trimmed into 8″ strips

Cucumber, trimmed into 8″ strips

Soy Sauce for Dipping

This recipe couldn’t be any simpler. For those of you familiar with different kinds of sushi, you’ll notice that it looks really similar for the recipe for how to make California Rolls. You would be correct! These recipes are almost identical, except that the cooked imitation crab in the California Roll is swapped out for raw salmon in this roll. That makes it a significant step up for someone just getting their feet wet in the wonderful word of sushi.

First you’re going to spread your rice out on the nori (remember, keep the nori shiny side down) as described in my other maki roll recipes. If you’re rolling it up as a regular roll (rice on the inside, like the picture below), make sure it’s not spread too thickly, so that you can still see little patches of green nori here and there, and make sure you leave a lip on the top for the roll to seal itself. If you are rolling an inside-out roll (rice on the outside, like the pictures above), you can spread the rice a little thicker and don’t have to leave a lip.

Next, you’re just going to lay out your different ingredients on the rice, about 3/4ths of the way down the sheet of nori. Cut the salmon into thin strips of about 8″ in length and put them on the rice. The cucumber and avocado can be added right next to it. If you’re rolling a normal roll, just use the sushi rolling mat to roll it up, cut, and enjoy! If you’re rolling an inside-out roll, you’ll need to flip the nori and rice over and place the ingredients down on the backside inside, and then roll it up, cut, and enjoy. Use a bowl of water nearby to keep your hands damp so that the rice doesn’t stick too much, and use the sushi rolling mat to keep the roll uniform and compact.

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.

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

History of California Rolls

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.

Preparing the Ingredients 

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. Cook the crab sticks according to the packaging. They usually only need a few minutes in a pot of boiling water. Take care when removing them. I like to use salad tongs to pull them out. While you are waiting for the crab sticks to cook, you can apply a layer of rice to the nori, as shown in the picture below. The rice should be quite sticky. You may find it useful to dampen your hands in between each chunk of rice.

Rolling the Maki Roll

Peel and then cut up the cucumber into 8″ strips, as shown in the picture. Peel and slice the avocado into thin strips of the same length as the avocado, also show in the picture above on the left side. Lay the avocado slices, cucumber strips and cooker crab stick onto the prepared sheet of nori and rice. Roll up carefully, using the bamboo mat to tighten and solidify the 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 well, 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.