How to Make Sushi

High quality and creative sushi can be really expensive at restaurants. If you don't readily have a Japanese restaurant near you, don't want to spend lots of money for small portions of food or just want to try your hand at making sushi, these instructions are easy to follow and highly adaptable!

You will need:

A ricecooker or a pot to cook rice in.

A wide, flat pan (like a lasagna pan) to put cooked rice in

A spatula

A bamboo sushi mat (available online or in supermarkets--same asian supermarket caveat goes. Expect to pay about $2.00 for one in an asian supermarket. More elsewhere. If unavailable, you can make do without. Makes for "prettier" rolls but not essential.

Nori--10 sheets-- (seaweed that's been dried, flavored and cut into sheets)- Nowadays, these are available in regular supermarkets in the "ethnic aisle." However, as they are considered "ethnic food" and probably don't get much movement, they may be expensive or old or both. Look for expiration date. If you live near a city or there is an asian food store--chinese, korean, and japanese supermarkets--will stock Nori at about $1.50-$2.00 for a package of approximately 10-15 sheets of Nori. Regular supermarkets or organic foodstores will charge anywhere from $3.00 to $5.00 for the same package. Look for Nori that's 10 x 10 in size.

Rice: 3 cups--Buy Sushi rice. Sushi rice is a medium grain white rice. I recommend going to an Asian supermarket and buying sushi rice there. Again, you can get this at most supermarkets now but it's expensive.At a regular supermarket, you'll probably be paying about $3.00-$5.00 for a 1 lb bag of rice labeled "sushi rice." At an ethnic supermarket, you can get a 10lb bag (if you want a 10lb bag) of Kokuho Rose (a particular brand of medium grain that's great for sushi--I use this.) for $11.00. It has a resealable bag and lasts a long time.

Rice Wine Vinegar--1/3 cup--rice vinegar = rice wine vinegar. There's also seasoned rice wine vinegar which is already seasoned with sugar and salt. That stuff is okay and makes flavoring foolproof but you might not like the preseason aspect of it.
Substitutes include apple cider vinegar (also add a pinch of sugar if you like) or white wine vinegar or 3 parts white vinegar and 1 part water.

Toasted Sesame Seeds--1 cup-- (they usually come this way anyway)

Water--3 1/4 cup

Sugar--2 tbsp

Salt--1 tsp

Stuff to put inside the roll! For this example, we'll do a california roll. You'll need:

Artificial Crab meat--10 sticks (in stick form though chunk form is okay but not preferable)

Avocados--1-2 ripe and cut into strips of 1/4 width and 5 inches in length)

A note on stuff inside: You can put whatever you want inside granted that you will want to eat it. Keep in mind that you don't want anything that will make the roll soggy. Remember you will be working with rice (that will be sticky and a little wet anyway) so wet lettuce or like overly saucy things are probably not ideal. If you want to try your hand at "typical" sushi, buy things like artificial crab meat, avocados, carrots, and cucumbers. If you want to get creative, try pine nuts, beef jerky, pieces of chicken, whatever you like. For this example, we will make a california roll.

Preparation:

Cook rice according to instructions on bag. While that's cooking, prepare vinegar mix (unless you have the pre-seasoned kind) 3 cups Japanese-style rice

Combine 3 1/4 cups water, 1/3 cup rice wine vinegar, 2 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp salt in a pan and cook until boiling.

When rice is done, take rice out of pot and spread in wide, shallow pan pour vinegar mixture over rice and mix well.

To give rice a nice "shiny" look, fan it while you're doing this. If appearances are not important to you, just mix well and make sure not to smash the rice. That would not be good.

If you have a sushi mat:

Put one nori sheet on sushi mat. Salt nori slightly if you want. Like sprinkle it on it so that you have a few crystals on the nori. Not so much salt that there's a layer-you're looking for a few crystals on the sheet. Spread THIN layer of rice on nori. When I say thin, I mean about HALF of the thickness of a CD jewel case. That's like slightly less than 1/4 inch. Spread the rice on 3/4 of the nori sheet leaving 1/4 of either the TOP or BOTTOM of the Nori sheet empty.

Put two crab sticks in the center of the rice. Line up about 2-3 slices of avocado next to the crab. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of sesame seeds on this.

Take the EMPTY end of the Nori and fold into a roll. Roll TOWARDS the other end which does have rice on it like you're rolling a piece of paper you want to make a telescope out of. Once you have this roll form, roll the sushi mat around this nori roll with rice and stuff in it. The sushi mat is meant to secure the roll inside so give it SOME pressure and roll the mat with the nori roll inside. This should tighten the roll inside. Remember we left one side of the nori without rice and spread rice on the other side? The side with the rice will be the sticking agent that will keep the roll together. The mat will help in doing this without your having to squeeze the roll itself.

If you DON'T have a sushi mat.

Follow the same steps as above but when it comes to rolling the nori roll, you're going to have to be careful and apply pressure directly to the nori roll. BE CAREFUL and don't squeeze too hard. In the past, I've tried using saran wrap on a piece of card stock. Something that is pliable but has some substance to it. You can roll the nori roll with your hands without such a surface but your roll might not be as tight and neat.

After you've rolled the nori roll, take out a SHARP knife and cut into pieces. The end pieces may not be as pretty--eat those while you're working--but your center pieces, assuming your roll was well-rolled together and tight will be looking good. To keep your knife sharp, wipe off with wet cloth between every slice.

Arrange on plate. Eat.