Simplified Sushi

Hey Everybody. Since you guys have been so kind with your feedback, I decided to show you guys something that my wife and her girlfriend enjoyed during a visit.

If you've read any of my other Instructables, you know that I love good food and one of my favourite foods is Sushi. I'm no expert at cooking but in my humble opinion (IMHO) sushi isn't the easiest thing to make in general. In fact if you look at the traditional methods of producing sushi, it can be quite intimidating.

"So why did you pick this Instructable?" You may ask. Well months ago my wife said that she doesn't like sushi. She said that the texture of the fish and the smells from the sushi bar putt her off and she would always end up taking a gamble on the teriyaki chicken. Well this kind of rubbed me funny, I guess I couldn't imagine why that should stop me or her from enjoying some now and again. I managed to convince her to try my version and ever since its been a welcome treat, especially since its gluten free and very healthy.

Some disclaimer: There are so many Instructables on sushi its kind of silly, but, this is the method that works best for me, you can change your ingredients as you like however, I encourage you to keep it simple. Also those who do not deal with knives need to keep in mind that knives are not a joke, I myself have cut myself very badly on many occasions even when no one was there to help me stop the bleeding. Its important to have the proper safety nearby. When you get a cut on your hand and need to stop the bleeding, apply pressure to your wrist and raise your arm into the air to slow and stop the bleeding, take a seat and make sure the stove is off until you collect yourself and clean up. At this point you should run your cut under a cold tap and clean it with soap and water. If the bleeding wont stop after about 10 minutes, or the wound is too big for your band aid, its probably a good idea to seek medical attention. Now that I covered safety, lets go through the ingredients.

If your trying to get someone to like sushi, you should get them to like fish first. You can refer to my Fish and steamed rice recipe on my profile along side my other Instructables.

The ingredients are fairly simple:

-Seaweed

-Carrot

-Cucumber

-Fish - Tilapia

-Sesame oil

-Sesame Seeds

-Salt (sea salt or kosher)

-Rice (jasmine or some other sticky rice type)

-Soy sauce

IMHO this meal isn't terribly expensive. It's easy to pack for lunch the next day and my wife's friends at work think she's the coolest. Since the only raw ingredients are the veggies and the see weed its safe to eat the next day. You can drizzle some water on the pieces and slip them into the microwave for less then a minute to re-hydrate the rice and heat up the fish but this also changes the consistency of things so be mindful. Normally I wouldn't ethically even recommend using a microwave since I think all meals should be freshly produced if possible, with the freshest ingredients. Unfortunately, this meal takes the better part of an hour to prepare so you have to break this up into segments. Start an hour before dinner, when your guests arrive you'll be lock stock and ready to rock.

Rice takes around 20 minutes to cook, so lets start there, especially since we can leave it alone while we do other stuff.

Slip 4 cups of rice into the rice cooker, without rinsing the rice

-Pour 4 and 1/2 cups in the rice along with a full tsp of salt

-Stir and set aside to cook.

-Take a non stick pan and give it about 1 tbsp of sesame oil. With a little more than a 1/4 tsp of salt sprinkled.

As you add these ingredients, start to putt things away to help you stay organized and to prevent accidents. The kitchen is a giant and very real chemistry set, if you don't respect it, it can burn your house down.

-Place the fish in the pan

-Set the stove to medium

-Putt the top on

-let it thaw and cook until it gets to your desired point.

You can set a timer if you like for about 10 minutes, just to make sure you get back to check on its status.

My wife loves a crunchy roll, so I putt two ingredients that she likes in her sushi.

-Cucumber and carrots. More people should eat carrots, they contain vitamins that help with adjusting to changing light and has a slight sweetness to it which adds to the flavouring.

-Slice all pieced in half until you get the thin small size which is easiest to roll. If your slicing is too short or too fat, you may find the rolling process more messy and the final product might not be ideal.

-Collect all your thin slices and try to keep everything organized. The will actually make things much easier.

Words of wisdom: Please be careful with knives. its no joke. Be sure to have proper safety gear near by for emergency first responses.

Now lets check on the fish.

Unless you took your sweet time your fish by now would have thawed, evaporated its liquids and is now beginning to brown in the pan.

You can choose at this point to slice it up or keep cooking but I like to leave one side not fried because it makes it easier to slice up. When its fried its hard.

- Slice the fish up to thin strips and set them aside.

Place all your ingredients neatly in front of you. At this point you should sprinkle some sesame seeds for some extra color and flavor. Set your ingredients aside and lets prep to get rolling.

Here's the part you've all been waiting for. Traditionally there are competitions on different, varied and ingenious methods to rolling sushi, but I find that staying simple and consistent satisfies my customers just fine (friends and family).

-Start by laying down the seaweed.

I find that laying it down with the flatter or smoother side of the seaweed on the bottom gives you better results in the way the sushi looks.

-Spread and flatten enough rice onto the seaweed such that you leave more room on the top compared to the bottom and place your ingredients into the lower middle section.

-Now start the roll by flipping over about 1/4 of the seaweed and press down a little. This should make it stick and keep things in place while you slip off the sushi roller.

-Start rolling everything a little further along, and (using your wet hand) place some water along the edge of the seaweed at the top.

-Continue to roll over that point and then press down at the wet point you'll eventually roll over.

-Look at the seal and if its still a little raised and not sitting flush with the roll just rolling over that spot.

-If its really not sticking at all , you may need more water, or your sea weed might be expired or poorly made.

Your sea weed should not have big holes in it and should be stiff but will bend without breaking when rolled.

-To slice the sushi roll into pieces, I find that a sharp, wet, serrated edge works best. Normal knives IMHO aren't sharp enough to cut sushi well enough.

-Be sure to wet the blade before every slice, to wet the residue on the place and prevent sticking of the blade to the sushi. This may take a couple attempts. to get it the way you want it. Each roll should give you about 8-10 pieces depending on how you slice it.

-I know this can seam confusing but, give it a try, worst case scenario you made a few too thin or a few too big. Next time you'll do better

-Be sure to leave the place cleaner then you found it. This not only makes you popular with the wife but its a better background for the presentation of the food.

Auxiliary data:

-Did you know sushi is not traditionally meant as a full meal? It was considered a small snack that Wives would make for their socialite husbands when they went out for the evening. It was only when sushi came to the U.S that it was made more popular as a full meal.

I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I do. Although there are many Instructables on sushi, I hope I was at least able to make the picture clearer. All the best

Enjoy!