I have always thought that making sushi was extremely difficult and left this art form up to the professionals. However, I tried my hand at it today after watching a couple how-to videos, and VOILA! I made sushi!!! It was pretty and tasted great. Don't be scared, try it sometime.
Additionally, sushi does not mean raw fish. Fish is sometimes (not always) added to sushi.
Ingredients
Sushi:
- 1/2 cup seasoned rice vinegar
- 2 T. sugar
- 2 t. salt
- 3 cups short-grained sushi rice
- 3 1/2 cups water
- 4 sheets toasted nori
Fillings (pick 3 to 4):
- 1/2 regular cucumber, seeded and cut into matchsticks
- 1 carrot, cut into matchsticks
- 1 small yellow bell pepper, stemmed, seeded and cut into matchsticks
- 4 scallions, trimmed and cut into matchsticks
- 1(4-inch) piece daikon, peeled, and cut into matchsticks (or pickled daikon or 6 red radishes)
- 1 firm-ripe Hass avocado, peeled, thinly sliced lengthwise, sprinkled with lemon juice
- Soy sauce, wasabi, pickled ginger
- Special equipment: Bamboo sushi mat
For the rice:
Mix together vinegar, sugar, and salt. Rinse the rice in colander and drain. Prepare rice in a rice cooker or put the rice and water in medium saucepan with a tight fitting lid. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat to very low and simmer, tightly covered. (For a good seal wrap the pan's lid tightly with a small kitchen towel and cover the saucepan. Make sure the towel's edges are folded up well away from the heat.) Cook until all the water is absorbed, about 15 minutes. Remove the rice from the heat (don't uncover) and set aside for 10 minutes.
Fluff the rice with a fork and transfer it to a large bowl. Add the vinegar mixture and toss with the rice, using a wooden spoon. Cover the rice with a damp towel.
To assemble rolls: (traditional sushi)
Place the sushi mat with the slats running crosswise directly in front of you on a clean work space. Lay a sheet of nori
shiny-side down and lined up with the closest edge of the mat. Lightly
moisten fingers with water, and evenly press about 1 cup of the rice onto
the nori, with 1 1/2-inches uncovered at the far edge. Line up the
fillings in a row across the center of the rice. Beginning with the near edge of the mat, tightly roll up the nori, rice, and fillings into a cylinder. Firmly tug on the rounded mat over the roll as you pull on the far edge of the mat to tighten the roll. Open the mat, dab unsealed edge of nori with a bit of water and roll the sushi forward to seal. Transfer the sushi to a plate and cover with damp paper towels. Repeat with remaining rice and fillings.
Cut each sushi roll, crosswise, into 8 pieces with a sharp wet knife making sure to clean knife with wet towel in between each cut.
Serve with bowl of soy sauce, pickled ginger and wasabi for dipping.
