Homemade sushi makes me happy

[marycrawford]

Somewhere in the past year, I discovered sushi. I love it so much that a once-a-month visit to my favourite small Japanese restaurant isn't enough, so in the weekends my SO and me often make maki ourselves.

(Maki are the long rolls that are usually cut into six or eight pieces; nigiri are the separate clumps of rice with nice cuts of fish on top. I like both, but nigiri are less easy to make, and we don't have enough variety of fresh fish to make it worthwhile.)

I thought it would be very difficult, but making maki is pretty easy. All you need are the right ingredients - rice vinegar, sushi rice, nori, really fresh fish and vegetables, and a bamboo mat to roll the maki on. Then, for eating it, you want some Japanese soy sauce, some wasabi and maybe some pickled ginger, just like in a restaurant.

	Salmon & avocado maki with toasted sesame seeds, a couple of salmon and tuna nigiri, some plain tuna and salmon maki, and tuna & roasted red pepper & spring onion & cucumber maki.
	I tried something new in the tuna rolls that worked well: roast red pepper, the fairly hot kind. Roast them in the oven until the skin turns black, peel the skin off and take out the seeds, and add to the tuna roll in long thin strips. The rest is tuna, spring onion and cucumber.

My favorite recipe for how to make sushi rice and maki is in Dutch, but this one looks pretty good too.

Comments

[ltlj.livejournal.com]

Mmm, that looks good. We've got a nice sushi restaurant in town, that also does a big range of Japanese and Korean foods. We've got a ton of good Chinese and other Asian restaurants, but that's the only one that has the full sushi bar.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

We're very lucky to have several Japanese restaurants in town that aren't the teppan yaki "let's see how acrobatically I can fling this omelet in your face" crowd entertainment type restaurants. (We have a couple of those, too. I just don't go into them. *g*)

The last time I posted about sushi, I remember asking what sort of nigiri I should try next, and you and one or two others said, Unagi (the roasted eel with sauce). It's very very good. Mmmm.

[permetaform]

oooooooo, YUM.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

They were! (I do so love that dancy icon. Hee.)

[giglet.livejournal.com]

Ooh! These look fantastic!

I never seem to roll mine tight enough, somehow. They taste great, but look like a mess.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Hmm, might it be that the rice isn't sticky enough? I think that really helps keep the rolls together. (When making these, I have to keep dunking my fingers in a mix of water and rice vinegar to get the rice grains off.)

[elynross.livejournal.com]

omg evil woman I WANT TO BE ABLE TO MAKE SUSHI. Sigh. I just don't think we get good enough fish.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Hey, come over, and I'll make you some!

I seem to remember you have sushi places in town? If so, possibly you could ask the sushi chef where they get their fish. I doubt they'd mind getting such a question, especially if you're already a customer. *g*