My name is Sarah, and I am a sushi-holic. Seriously, I have a huge problem and a limited budget to get my fix, so I figured I'd foray into the world of homemade sushi. I'd tried this once before with limited success, but today I was determined.
When most people think sushi, they equate it with raw fish, which is incorrect. Sushi refers to the specially seasoned rice, so when you make sushi at home, getting the rice perfect is super important. I followed a sushi rice recipe from food.com and it came out perfectly.
Since this was my first attempt, I stuck with easy ingredients and made avocado and California rolls. For non-sushi eaters, California Rolls contain cucumber, crab stick and avocado.
Basic Instructions for Maki
Maki are the rolls traditionally thought of, the little circles with filling in the middle. First, get your ingredients sliced and ready to go. You can see my avocado, cucumber and crab stick cut in uniform-ish sized pieces.
Then the prep area needs to be set up. You need space enough for your sushi rolling mat, bowl of prepared rice, ingredients, nori and bowl of water/vinegar. The bowl of water with some vinegar sprinkled in will save your sanity. You dip your hands in in when working with the sticky sushi rice to keep it off your hands. Also, when you get to cutting the sushi, you'll dip your knife in before each cut. Here's my station all set:
Lay out a sheet of nori on the rolling mat, rough side up. Spread around a heaping half-cup of rice on the nori, leaving a border at the top and bottom. Lay the ingredients across the rice on the bottom third of the nori.
Once your ingredients are in place, then you start to roll. You want to roll everything up pretty tightly, otherwise a mess will be made when it's cutting time.
Once your maki is all rolled up, dip the knife in the water/vinegar and slice into six or eight pieces. Make sure the nori is seam-side down, otherwise it may fall apart. Also, be sure you are using a VERY SHARP knife or the filling will just squish out the sides.
Voila! Now that I've had success with some basic ingredients, I can't wait to try out other things. I also am saving some rice to see if I can make sushi later this week. I couldn't find anything online about saving the rice, so I'll let you know if it works out. We had this for lunch with some steamed edemame and a salad with ginger dressing. I don't like any of the bottled ginger dressings, so yet again, I used a dressing recipe from food.com.
So how much cheaper is at-home sushi than going to a restaurant? Since I'm a little too lazy to calculate the per roll cost (hey, I work in PR, not rocket science), I'll give you the cost of the ingredients (not counting sugar and salt since I always have those at the house):
- Bag of sushi rice (whole bag will make approx. 20 rolls): $4
- Nori, 10 sheets (so 10 rolls): $2
- Rice wine vinegar (12 oz. bottle): $3
- Avocado, 2: $2
- Cucumber, 1: $1
- Crab stick (surimi): $2.50
Since the total of all of those ingredients is cheaper than one trip to my sushi restaurants, I'll consider this a money-saving success, and a fun experiment.
Have questions? Ask away!
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