Making Sushi

A meal of sushi for two.

A lot of people confuse sushi to be raw fish. Well, a lot of caucasians confuse sushi to be raw fish...:P Sushi is basically steam cooked japanese rice wrapped with whatever you fancy, really. Do a wiki search on sushi - it's interesting. Sashimi, and not sushi, is the name for slices of raw fish usually served with some soy sauce and wasabi.

There are many types of sushi but the sushi I am making are called sushi rolls - the most common sushi type you see in sushi bars.

The perfect sushi is actually in the rice. It doesn't matter what you put in it but as long as you have got your rice right, you're good.

What you need for the PERFECT sushi rice:
3 cups of rice
3 3/4 cup water
1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt

The rest of the ensemble:
Nori (seaweed sheets)
cucumbers, julienned
carrots, julienned
red peppers, julienned

optional filling: kimchi, kimchi fried chicken, roasted pork, teriyaki chicken, cucumbers, tuna, etc etc etc.

Once that is done, we shall go to sushi-making step by step:

First you will need to clean the rice:


You gotta make sure that you clean them well - that means getting rid of the white murkiness of the water. And at the same time, you polish the rice by rubbing them between your hands gently. The rice is very fragile and will break easily so just do it like how you would play mud, for example.


Once your rice is cleaned, you add 3 and 3/4 cup of water into the rice and let it cook in a rice cooker.


While your rice is cooking, prepare your sushi vinegar (sushi-zu) where you will need to add at the end when the rice is cooked. So, combine the rice wine vinegar, sugar and salt and stir it till all solids are dissolved. You can microwave the vinegar solution for 30 seconds to help dissolve the solids too! :)


Once that's done and your rice is cooked. Fluff it up with a fork or with your rice scoop gently while pouring the sushi vinegar in. Stir the rice to combine flavors...stir as how you would fold a cake batter - and while you're at it, fan the rice with a magazine using the other hand or just do it like me; blow air into the rice with your mouth. Be careful to not to spit in it......

Your rice should be sticky and not mushy. Each rice grain should look polished and shiny, just like in the picture. Scoop your rice out onto a plate.

It's now time to assemble your sushi! I even made my own gari (pickled ginger; recipe later) as you can see in the picture.

Here's my sushi mat and my nori sheets.

So put a the rice on the nori sheet like in the picture...

Start adding your filling. I live with a vegetarian, so i added julienned tofu pieces which i marinated with some soy, pepper and mushroom sauce.


Roll your sushi tightly. It's the beginning that is the hardest but once you get the hang of it, it'll be a breeze.


So, in the end, you should get a tightly rolled sushi. Continue rolling until you have used up all the rice. 3 cups of rice should yield you about 5 rolls of sushi - depending on how big or small you want them to be. Mine were pretty large rolls.

Cut the sushi into 3/4 inch thick rolls. And you have a feast :)

I made a sushi out of stir fried kimchi chicken for myself. The result? Absolutely scrumptious! And we have left overs for lunch tomorrow too. Sweet!