Sushi Nirvana

I started getting excited about making my own sushi as soon as I started reading Sushi Day, a blog specifically written on how to make your own sushi.  I have been a Sushi eating addict for years.  I asked for a sushi making kit for Christmas and was surprised to receive three...each of which was unique and was worth keeping each one.

So over this past week I perfected making sushi...I think we spent about $50 on ingredients for the week...$50 is about a typical price for one meal at the restaurants and to be able to eat a weeks worth of meals for two at that price was great.

It took us a while to get the rice perfect...I tried twice making it in the pot and finally broke down and we hunted for all the parts to the rice cooker we got two years earlier.  The first time we made it in the rice cooker it was rice nirvana.

Also the first couple of times I tried it I tried to do it on my own from what I read and such.  It came out close to perfect, extremely delicious but yet still not right.  In one of my kits from my mom had a DVD Simply Sushi with Steven Pallett.  It was a short video but the things I learned in the video were priceless...simple tricks like dipping your knife into the bowl of water you use for your hands and letting the bead of water run down the blade of your knife before cutting into your roll was really helpful in making the sushi cut without sticking to your knife and falling apart on you.

We've made our first sushi for friends and they loved it.  

When I go to the store for ingredients we usually get a fillet of salmon without the skin, crab sticks, and shrimp that my wife fries up for some tempura styled shrimp rolls.  We also get wasabi mayo, avocado, cucumber and sesame seeds to sprinkle onto the rice.  

I like to make the inside-out maki rolls on a half sheet of nori.  I have found making hand rolls (coned-shaped maki) extremely fun to make and I like to make one of those to add to the visual presentation of my sushi, which I find to be just as fun as making it (although my wife just whips the rolls together as fast as possible as she says the fun part is eating the rolls and nothing else).

I also like Salmon Nigiri and have found that to be an excellant way of using the rest of the rice you have left when you don't have enough rice left for a roll.  Even though it looks so easy to make there is a technique that is needed to make it look perfect.

I find making sushi is like drinking it's fun but it's not as fun unless you are making it with someone else.  I can't wait to have a sushi party sometime soon.  Maybe for the SuperBowl I can make some.