Lots of people love sushi, but think it can only be procured outside the home. Here's a simple guide to making sushi in your kitchen.
Ingredients:
- Vegetables
- Fish, shellfish or other topping
- Rice wine vinegar
- Sushi rice
- Unsalted dried seaweed (layer sheets prepared for making sushi)
- Sugar
- Salt
Optional condiments:
- Wasabi
- Pickled ginger
- Soy sauce
How to Make:
Select 2 types of veggies (cucumbers and carrots) and a fish (for instance artificial cooked crab). Also, buy some dried seaweed (also known as nori) and uncooked rice.
Place about 2 cups of sushi rice in a rice cooker and then rinse the rice repeatedly until the rice water is not cloudy. Then fill the rice pot with new water (how much water depends on the amount of rice of the cooker and the same goes for how long to cook it; the instructions are usually in the box).
Wash the veggies and place them on a cutting board and cut the carrots in half long wise and then cut them into long skinny strips. Repeat on the cucumber.
Cut the crab into little strips and make sure they are pretty even in length.
Check on your rice. If it's ready, take it out and put it in a dish.
Take a bowl and pour in about two tablespoons of rice wine vinegar. You can add more or less depends on your taste buds and how separated you want your grains or rice. It is better to put in less right now and add more later. Add in sugar and salt and stir until it dissolves (repeat until it tastes good).
Pour the mixture onto the rice and mix thoroughly by "slicing" the rice. Add rice wine vinegar if needed to make the grains of rice separate easily.
Place the seaweed layer on a bamboo mat and then spread rice onto the seaweed. It should be spread out so there are no empty holes and it should fill the middle third. Place the strips of the veggies and the crab onto rice.
Roll the bamboo into a long roll by first folding the bottom third in then roll it up. It should look like a tube of some sort. Now remove the sushi roll from the bamboo and cut out as follows.
Cut down the middle of the roll, take each half and place them parallel to each other. Repeat by cutting both halves down the middle simultaneously, take those portions and repeat one last time. This cutting technique insures that the ingredients do not spill out of the roll. Serve and enjoy!
