Sushi

      So I've been getting sushi at Winco, where it's cheap, Safeway (where it's pricy), and Red Bento, where it's delicious! But I wanted to make my own, so a few months ago (like, November), I got a bamboo mat and some nori sheets. And they sat in my cupboard, lonely and forgotten. Until today! I had assumed that the hardest part would be making the rice. I can never make good rice. But I found some good recipes, and after sifting through all the tips, I ended up with some killer rice. I had to stop myself from eating it all before I made the sushi.

Just a note on the equipment - I've heard that you can use tin foil, plastic bags and wax paper to roll sushi. Maybe so. But I like how the bamboo rolled the rice nice and tight, so for six bucks, I think it was a good investment.

The knife is a sharp, serrated bread knife. It worked perfectly. But you really do need to keep it wet between cutting. I cut two rolls, then wiped it with a wet towl. Worked like a charm.

These here are veggie rolls - not quite California rolls, since I hate the smell of imitation
crab meat. I used carrot, cucumber and avacado.

These are tuna salad rolls! I should have done a little more work on the tuna, but they still taste great. I mixed  tuna with
garden veggie-flavoured cream cheese, and added half of a minced shallot. I put cucumber in, too. Next time, I'll add my pickled ginger to the tuna.

Here's the rice recipe I used. It's super good, and would be great with any stir fry :D

Sushi Rice:

2 cups short-grain white rice (actually, I used long-grain, and it probably makes no difference.)
3 cups water
1/4 cups rice vinegar (you can adjust this to taste. A little less if you're not a vinegar fan)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil, or sesame oil for a heartier flavour
1-2 tablespoons of sugar, depending on how sweet you like your rice
1 teaspoon of salt.

Rinse the rice until your water is clear. I'm sure that this was the missing step in all my previous rice attempts. I've always had mushy rice, and this time, it was exactly like restaurant rice. Imagine my joy!! Add it to a pan with the three cups of water and bring it to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to medium-low, then cook for 20 minutes. Cool it enough to handle.

In a small saucepan, combine rice vinegar, oil, sugar and sale. Cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Cool, and stir into the cooked rice. The rice will soak up the liquid as it cools, so don't worry if it looks too wet at first. I tasted my liquid mixture until I thought I had a good sugar/vinegar ratio. But once it cools, it's sticky and delicious! However, this makes a ton of rice, and I only rolled two sheets of nori, so I had a bunch of leftovers. I couldn't really eat it all for lunch, so I made Rebekah some rice balls for her bento box.

Here are some tips I found extrememly useful! 

When you're spreading the rice over the nori, keep your hands wet. That'll make it one hundred percent easier to handle the rice, and it will spread evenly.

When I added the filling, I kept it about 3/4's of the way up the mat, towards me. So when I rolled it, the first fold got the filling, and it was right in the middle.

I've heard that you should pour the vinegar over a spoon when adding it to the rice, for more even distribution. I did that, but I think that if you dump it in, and mix the rice well, it will be evenly coated. I've also heard that you should not use a metal bowl, because it will react with the vinegar. Okay, so I used a ceramic bowl.

I think you could put absolutely anything in these rolls. I'm excited to try some smoked salmon next time and/or sweet potato next time!