Do-It-Yourself Sushi

I love sushi. I love eating it. I love the way it makes me feel complete. If I could afford it, I would fashion those sushi boats to travel throughout my house so that at any moment I could simply reach over and grab a piece of sushi and eat it. Yum.

Recently, I tried something for the first time: I made my own sushi. Before you recoil in disbelief, believe me when I say that it's really not that hard. You too can make your own sushi. Yes, you! It's a great idea for a party or a date night, but it can just as easily be done alone so that you can shove the sushi down your throat without fear of disapproving looks from a loved one.

First thing's first: let's go shopping. I went to a great Japanese Market called Safe and Save Japanese Grocery (2030 Sawetelle Blvd.), which is just West of the 405. It's in a littler Little Tokoyo, in between a couple blocks of sushi restaurants and galleries, North of Olympic, South of Santa Monica Blvd. You can just as easily find a Japanese Grocery in the real Little Tokoyo or 
somewhere else.

This market was great because they had pre-packaged, sliced, fresh sashimi as well as an AWESOME lobster salad. It's important to get the fish at a Japanese grocery and to tell them it's for sushi. You can't just use regular fish, it has to be frozen for 48 hours if it hasn't been already.

I also bought short-grained sushi rice here. At larger markets you can only buy a huge bag, but at Safe and Save it was available in smaller bags, which saved me some money. I also bought some crunchy seasoning to sprinkle on the sushi.

I was able to find the rest of my desires at Ralph's. You can certainly buy everything you need from the Japanese Grocery, but I was able to find most of what I needed for less money at Ralph's so I went that route. My complete shopping list was as follows:

Shopping List

short-grained sushi rice
Japanese rice vinegar
salt
sugar

sushi grade fish
assorted veggies
cream cheese

bamboo rolling mat
nori seaweed
wasabi
ginger
soy sauce
seasoning or seasame seeds

optional:
saran wrap

After you've shopped, the first thing to do is make the rice:

Vinegared Rice (sumeshi) - makes 4 cups or about 40 individual pieces

1 3/4 cup short-grained rice
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons sea salt (kosher salt works fine)

Soak the rice in cold water for 10-15 minutes and then drain it. Pour it into a heavy-bottom saucepan and cover with 2 cups of water.

Cover the rice and boil for 5 minutes on high heat.

Lower the heat and simmer the rice for about 12 minutes, or until the water is absorbed. Remove the rice from the heat, but leave it covered for 15 minutes.

In a small bowl, mix the rice vinegar, sugar and salt until the sugar is fully dissolved.

Transer the rice to a shallow bowl and sprinkle the vinegar mixture on top. Fold the rice with a wooden spoon - don't stir it, fold it. Be gentle with the rice. Let the rice cool to room temperature before making sushi.

Simple Rolled Sushi

Create a hand vinegar with 1/4 cup rice vinegar and 1 cup water in a small bowl. You will dip your hand and knife in this liquid to prevent sticking.

1. Lay out your bamboo rolling mat and cover with saran wrap.
2. Cut your nori so that it's 3/4 of the original sheet size. And lay it on the mat, shiny side down so that the natural lines on the sheet aline with the bamboo.
3. Dip your fingers in the vinegar mixture and then take a handful of rice (about 3 tablespoons) and spread it over the seaweed leaving about 1/2 an inch on the far side of the seaweed uncovered.
4. Spread a pea size of wasabi down the middle of the rice. Put whatever filling you wish directly over this stripe.

Now you can add whatever you would like. If you use cucumber, cut it into planks but halving it and de-seeding it and then cutting it into 1/2 inch square matchsticks. Everything else just cut to the same size. Some great combos are: salmon, avacado and cream cheese, tuna and cucumber... the possibilities are endless.

If you're feeling adventurous you can do an inside-out roll by following steps 1-3 and then flipping the seaweed over so the rice is touching the saran wrap and then completing your roll.

Rolling the Sushi

Take the bamboo mat and roll it over the filling and press down and pull towards you. Lift the mat one more time and roll again so that sushi is self contained. This is a two step process to make sure the sushi is wrapped tight. If you try to roll it all in one motion it won't be tight and it will fall apart.

Cutting the Sushi

Cut the sushi roll in half once, and then each half into thirds. You now have six pieces of sushi!

Sushi Boats

You can take the extra seaweed that you cut off the sheet to make sushi boats. Take 1 tablespoon of rice in your hand and make into a football, egg, ovalish shape with a flat bottom. Wrap the seaweed around it and fasten it with a piece of rice. You can fill the top with seasoning and lobster salad or any sort of fish salad. Delish!

And that is how you make sushi!