How to Cook Sushi by Yourself
When making sushi, you can generally add any components to your sushi that you like, similar to making a sandwich. You can use any elements such as ham, sausage, fried chicken, cooked egg, and cooked potato in your sushi. Go ahead and try your hand at making sushi by yourself. You’re sure to enjoy.
Making your own sushi roll is not difficult. To make sushi, follow the directions on this page for making a California Roll.
The items you need for making California Rolls
- Japanese Rice (short grain rice)
- Nori (seaweed sheets)
- sesame seeds
- Wasabi
- Vinegar
- sugar
- salt
- cucumber
- Avocado
- Imitation crab stick
- Rice cooker
- Makisu (bamboo sushi mat)
- How to cook sushi rice.
- Prepare sushi vinegar.
- Rice Vinegar----180 ml (about 6.3 oz)
- Sugar-----------100g (3.5 oz)
- Salt-------------30g (1.1 oz)
- Add vinegar to the rice
- Vegetable Preparation
- Make a sushi roll
- Cutting a sushi roll
Put 4 cups of rice (about 820g=1.8lb) in a mesh strainer and dip it into a bowl of water and wash the rice by hand. When you wash the rice, the water becomes white. Therefore, you will need to remove the rice with the strainer and change the water. Then you can wash the rice again. Repeat this 2-3 times and then drain the rice.
Put the rice into a rice cooker and add 2 cups of water. Start cooking the rice until the cooker switches off. When it turns off, leave the lid on the rice cooker and let the rice sit for about 15 minutes. This 15 minutes is very important, allowing the rice to completely cook for the best possible taste.
While cooking rice you can prepare sushi vinegar.
If you use just vinegar alone for your sushi without any pre-treatment, sushi will be too sour and will not be good taste. So the vinegar preparation is an important process for sushi cooking. Most of the sushi restaurants have their own secret recipes in Japan. So I recommend you to create your own recipe.
This is a basic recipe that you can modify for making your own sushi:
Add these ingredients in a bowl and stir it until the sugar and salt completely dissolve.
Take the cooked rice from the rice cooker, place it in a bowl and add whole prepared vinegar to the rice. Then quickly mix the vinegar with the rice, using a rice ladle with cutting motions. After mixing it completely, allow the mixture to cool so that you can touch it with your bare hands. You can put the bowl in the refrigerator for quick cooling.
While allowing the rice to cool, you can prepare the cucumber and avocado. Wash a cucumber, peel it and cut off the ends. Cut the cucumber into quarters lengthwise, removing the seedbed from each cut part. Then cut each part into narrow sticks; cut each stick into about 12 cm (5") length sticks and put them on a plate.
Cut an avocado into 4 pieces and remove the seed and the skin. Then cut each piece into about 7mm thick slices and put them on a plate.
Wrap the Makisu (bamboo sushi mat) with cooking wrap and put a half size Nori (dried seaweed sheet) on the wrapped Makisu. Put rice on the Nori and spread it evenly. Sprinkle some sesame seeds on the spread rice (if you don’t like the sesame seeds, of course don’t use them) and turn the Nori-rice mat over to make the Nori sheet come to top. Apply a little bit of wasabi on the surface of Nori. Split an imitation crabmeat stick into two pieces and put the crab on the Nori. Add cucumber sticks and avocado slices as well. Then start rolling the assembled sushi, using the Makisu.
After making a sushi roll, cut it into 8 pieces and arrange on a plate.
The above process shows how to make California Roll sushi. The California Roll is a Uramaki type of sushi. If you decide to make other types of Uramaki sushi, you may have to modify the above procedure.
- How to Cook Hosomaki Sushi Roll
- How to Cook Futomaki Sushi Roll
If you want to make Hosomaki type of sushi, you have to spread a smaller quantity of rice than the regular Uramaki type of sushi. You should leave one long side of Nori without rice. The width of it should be about 1.5 cm. Apply wasabi on the rice surface and then put the sushi components on it. Before you begin rolling the sushi, dip your finger into water and trace the open Nori side with your finger, adding moisture on the area. Then start rolling the sushi from the edge where the rice was spread. The moist area of the Nori works as an adhesive, causing the roll to stick together when it is completed.
When you make Futomaki, you have to use a whole Nori sheet, unlike Hosomaki and regular Uramaki. If you want to make Uramaki type of Futomaki, follow the instructions for making the California Roll. If you want to make regular Futomaki, follow the instructions for making Hosomaki. You will have to use a larger amount of rice for Futomaki than Hosomaki or regular Uramaki.
