Last night I decided to get brave and try to make my own sushi, California Rolls specifically. I'm not comfortable with using raw fish, even sushi grade as I'm not a professional. I've never even done this before!! I'm a trial and error kind of person. I've done quite a bit of study on how sushi is made- another one of my learning adventures- so I didn't use any tutorials here, I just winged it. I will, however, include links to some tutorial videos and websites for help if you wanna try to make some yourself! My iPhone got left in the car so I wasn't sure what all to get but here's what I ended up with.
1 cucumber
1 bottle of rice vinegar (TIP: check both the oriental section and the vinegar section for the best price)
3 bags of crab snackers (small packs of imitation crab that were a dollar a piece and I only used 3)
1 small avocado (haas)
1 great value box of boil in bag rice (cooking any other kind intimidates me. I'm rice cooking handicapped)
1 pkg of toasted seafood sheets
1 Mountain Dew (more on this later)
Step one:
I used two bags for this particular project.
Step two:
Prepare filling ingredients. I basically just took my crab meat out (I only ended up using two of the three packages) in its still stuck together square form and cut thin slices length ways. Here's a tip on the avocado! Cut the thing in half and then smack the pit with the blade of your knife- then just twist and lift, it'll come right out! I also score my avocado inside the flesh and then peel it back. This process makes for easier cutting. As far as the cucumber I only used half and i just peeled that half, cut it in half lengthwise and cut thin strips. Doing this type of prep work always makes things easier.
Step three:
Pull out you bags of rice and let them begin to drain they should be about ready when you're done with your ingredients. Let the rice cool- I throw mine in the freezer because I'm lazy and impatient. There's no pic of this step because my freezer isn't pretty. Once the rice is cool, sprinkle on your vinegar. This is to taste so start with a little and go from there.
Step four:
This step is particular to me- drink some Mountain Dew and give yourself a pep talk- you can do this!! You're not scared of these things and who's really gonna make fun of you if it's not perfect? Do you have a professional sushi chef in your living room waiting to laugh? If you do why isn't he doing this? I'd throw his lazy rear end out!....sorry I'm rambling again.
Step five:
Lay your rice onto your seaweed. This is about trial and error. It should be a thin layer but covering the seaweed. I pushed out quite a bit of rice the first couple of times. You'll get the hang of it. I learned pretty quickly that it rolls easier if you leave a little bit (let's say almost an inch) uncovered. I didn't have a mat or anything I thought could be turned into a mat at that moment. If you would like one, for easier rolling here's how to make one: take a bamboo place mat and wrap it thoroughly in Saran Wrap. Done. If you don't have one, don't panic. Improvise
and take your time
Step six:
Lay out your ingredients. This is the important part if you use the same seaweed I did. Those small sheets are intended for hand rolls. That's all we have at my Walmart and I don't like hand rolls. So, again, I improvised! Make sure you lay your ingredients horizontally across the width of the seaweed, not the length. I tried that and they came out like this:
See? A falling apart mess. Still tasty though. So all my next rolls were horizontal. Much better! Also, make sure you roll these up tightly, starting at the end with the ingredients!
Step seven:
Slice your sushi! I got four pieces out of the sheets I used. They were about an inch thick really- average sized for the sushi I've eaten. Tip: put the seam on the bottom and use a sharper knife than I did!
Place your sushi on a nearby platter or plate and when it's full (and mine certainly was!) place in the fridge to cool- make more while its cooling if you'd like!
The Finished Product
That's it, that's all there was to it! I had fun and I've been strutting around the house since. On a side note I put hot pepper flakes in one of Brandon's as a prank. Mean maybe, but hilarious and he likes spicy things anyway. Woody (his roommate) liked them too!
All in all this was a great adventure for me and I think they came out wonderfully. It definitely wasn't as hard as I thought and I can only improve from here!
Sushi site that's a great help for beginners: make my sushi
No comments:
Post a Comment