Mastering sushi at home 🍣

I don't remember how it all started, I just know that I've always loved the taste of different Asian cuisines. We don’t have many Asian cuisine restaurants in my hometown or vicinity, so whenever I’m traveling abroad, I’m trying to make a stop in Japanese, Korean, etc. restaurants. A few weeks ago, I was planning a nice evening out with my friends at a sushi restaurant. But unfortunately, our plans didn't work out as the restaurant was already fully booked for that day. As mentioned, we don’t have many options to choose from, so my wife and I decided to prepare dinner at our home. We decided to put sushi on the menu, hoping that everything would work out as planned!

Sushi has been a trendy for a few years now, which is not surprising as it is calorie friendly, and fish and rice are among the healthier foods. It's not the first time we've made sushi at home. We'd done it a few times already, but this time it was a little different, as we invited our friends over for dinner, and we didn't want to disappoint them. I have to say that we are not “experts” and that we learned to prepare sushi from different “online videos” but we did “a lot of tasting”. I assure you that maybe they don’t look perfect, but they taste very good 😊.

Making good sushi takes a lot of skill and knowledge, and we are still beginners, but what we have learned by now is that the trick is to make the right rice and choose a good piece of fish.

For the dinner we’ve prepared sushi with tuna, salmon, and king prawns. In the morning, my family and I went to a fish market to buy fresh fish and prawns. And there was the second obstacle to cross (after the fully booked restaurant). I had no problems with tuna and king prawns, but when I wanted to buy a nice piece of salmon filet, I realized that they had only cut-up slices of fish. I decided to buy it anyway, knowing that it would take a little improvisation.

• 500 g sushi rice
• 200 g fresh fish (salmon, tuna)
• 400 g king prawns
• nori seaweed
• 4 table spoons rice vinagre
• 2 tea spoons sugar
• 1 tea spoon salt
• 1 lemon
• soy sauce
• wasabi

It was time to cook the rice. It is the basis of good sushi, and it is very important to cook it properly (before you have to buy the right rice, we always use the rice that is clearly marked as sushi rice 😊). I’ve put the rice in a pot and rinsed it with water until the water is completely clear. I’ve changed the water several times during the process. When the rice was clean, I’ve put the rice into the pot and cover it with water (I have my own measurements – for 500 g of rice I use 660 ml of water or just follow the instructions on the rice packages).

I cooked the rice until it came to the boil. Then I stirred it from time to time. When the water boiled, I reduced the heat to the lowest setting, stopped stirring, and covered the pot. I cooked exactly as indicated on the manufacturer's packaging. Once the rice was cooked, I left it covered for a further 10 minutes to allow the rice to absorb all the moisture.

Then I transferred the cooked rice to the bowl. While I was waiting for the rice to absorb any remaining liquid, I prepared the dressing. I mixed rice vinegar, sugar and salt in a small bowl and stirred until the salt and sugar were completely dissolved. Then I poured the mixture over the rice and stirred gently. In the end, you have to allow it to slowly cool to room temperature.

The time has come for the vegetables. I washed, peeled, and cut the avocado into suitable sizes.

I gently washed, wiped and cut the salmon and tuna into thicker strips, about 0,5 cm thick and long.

And finally, was the time for creation and the time when I needed to be very concentrated and calm. 😊. I used my bamboo mat to roll the sushi. I placed the nori seaweed on the surface with the rough side facing upwards. With wet hands I gently placed the rice on the seaweed and spread it evenly over the seaweed with my fingers, leaving about 2 cm to the top edge of the seaweed empty.

Then I arranged the fish strips in a straight line in the middle of the rice, followed by the avocado. I started to roll the sushi at the bottom edge, using the base to fold it over the fish and vegetables. I pressed the bottom edge against the rice with my fingers and formed a tight roll with my hands. I rolled it all the way up and firmed it to make a firm roll.

The final stage -I placed the roll on a cutting board and with a sharp knife dipped in cold water, I cut into bite-sized pieces.

The preparation of uramaki sushi is slightly different from that of hosomaki sushi. It's a kind of hosomaki inside out sushi. I used a piece of food foil to spread the rice on, and put nori seaweed on top. Then I put the tuna and the vegetables on top of the nori seaweed, and then I wraped it all up into a roll. Finally, I sprinkled the wrap with toasted sesame seeds.

We prepared different types of sushi, hosomaki with salmon, hosomaki with tuna, nigiri with tuna, nigiri with salmon, and uramaki rolls with tuna, sprinkled with roasted sesame seeds.

We also prepared a superb dish with king prawns. We simply cleaned the prawns and then marinated them in a mixture of olive oil and lemon juice. We added salt to taste and seasoned with red pepper and cumin. Very simple and very easy, and of course very tasty!

As a side dish, we served a salad, prepared with red peppers, celery, and carrots. For the dressing we used olive oil, soy sauce, a little honey, and lemon juice for freshness. Finally, we added roasted peanuts and roasted sesame seeds and mixed everything together well. It worked just yummy!

Green tea or sake would be a great accompaniment to the sushi. Since we didn't have that at home, we toasted with a glass of wine. With sushi, definitely the rule applies: practice makes perfect, if the master does the practice. It's a sincere consolation if you don't succeed on the first try. It's the fun that counts! Kanpai!

Bon Appetite 🍽️ 🍴 😋

Thanks for reading,
feel free to leave a comment, I will be glad to reply to.
Best regards, @miljo76