By Fran Sloan

Sushi is a delicious meal or even snack on its own. Sushi is essentially cooled, boiled rice mixed with rice vinegar that is typically shaped into bite-sized pieces and topped with raw seafood. Sushi can also be formed into a long seaweed wrapped roll that contains strips of vegetables or raw fish and is then sliced into bite-sized pieces.

While earlier, you’d only find sushi in select Japanese restaurants and specialty stores, these days with people getting increasingly more adventurous with their foods, sushi is also available in several grocery stores.

Making your own sushi at home, using ingredients and components that you enjoy is a labor of love that is sure to impress any die-hard sushi lover. Here are a few things you will need to begin your sushi making adventure: a bamboo rolling mat, a cutting board, a sharp knife and a large bowl.

The first step is to make the rice. You will want to use short grain or cal-rose rice. Instant rice and brown rice do not have a place in sushi. Rice should be slightly harder for sushi than other dishes, this does not mean undercooked, just not overcooked to the point of mushiness. You may also wish to rinse and drain your rice in a colander, which is optional. Once you have transferred the rice to a bowl, pour sushi vinegar over the top and mix. About one tablespoon of sushi vinegar per cup of cooked rice should do the trick. Mix well and cool. The rice mixture needs to be cooled before using to make sushi.

While cooling the rice get out nori seaweed for sushi rolls. You can find this at Asian grocery stores if it is not available in the general grocery store. Lay out your bamboo mat and if desired, cover with plastic wrap to keep it clean. Place one sheet of nori seaweed on top of it. Spread rice on top of the seaweed, leave about an inch of seaweed exposed along the edges for rolling. One of the biggest mistakes people make is using too much rice. Rice should be about 1/4th inch thick and the nori should be visible through the rice. Don’t overload the nori with rice or you will not be able to achieve a well-rolled product.

Place the items that you want inside your roll on top of the rice near the edge, the edge you will roll first. A California roll contains a slice of avocado, a slice of crab meat and a slice of cucumber. Other rolls contain different sliced vegetables or fish. Place these on top of the rice and then begin to roll. You do not have to apply to much pressure to pack the rice and other items inside the roll, the rolling process will take care of that. Slowly fold the mat over and tuck the nori as you go. Apply light pressure as you roll, removing the mat and plastic wrap as the nori rolls and takes shape. Once the roll is formed moisten your knife and cut into six to eight even pieces. Stand on end to serve.

Fran adores just spending free time in the kitchen trying out completely new recipes with the help of her crock pot. One of her all time wintertime favorites is certainly breakfast crock pot recipes.

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Joe Kim, head sushi chef at Five Fusion in Bend shows how to make a rainbow roll. The most difficult part of making a rainbow roll as well as nigiri is slicing fish. The chef demonstrates exactly what you need to know when you slice your knife into the fish. It’s fair to say how you slice fish determines the outcome of your creation. The chef Kim shows where to place fingers as you slice the fish as if you are standing right next to him, and this alone is the great tip you can get from a pro. One more thing – you want to use a very sharp knife. For a sushi chef, the knife is as important as his skills.

If you love spicy tuna rolls, you have come to the right place. You can make your own tuna rolls and it’s not as difficult as you think. Chef Joe Kim of 5 Fusion and Sushi Bar in downtown Bend demonstrates how to make spicy tuna rolls in simple easy-to-follow steps. What I’m most impressed with the chef’s demonstration is that he explains all of the important tips in making sushi from how much sushi zu to use for sushi rice to wetting the knife before cutting sushi. The best part of learning from a chef is that you can leverage his tricks in preparing the best way to prepare sushi like a pro.

By David P Fishman

Making Sushi

When it comes to preparing something tasty, inexpensive, and relatively good for you, I really have to endorse sushi. Sushi is a delightfully delicious bit of Japanese cuisine that can be really intriguing and satisfying to prepare yourself. Going out to sushi bars can be fun, but costs a lot. If you learn how to make your own sushi, you’ll be able to save money, eat great and keep the kitchen cool in the summer, because don’t forget-sushi uses RAW fish. That means no cooking, which means a nice cool kitchen:)

What You Need

Sushi can have many different ingredients, but usually comprises of a few core ingredients. You’ll need special short-grained Japanese sushi rice, nori, (flattened sheets of green seaweed) and ingredients to put in the sushi roll. You’ll also need some rice vinegar, sugar and salt to add seasoning to the rice. You can get all of these things at any well-stocked local grocery store except for the nori, which you may need to go to an Asian market for. If you don’t live near an Asian market, you can look online for a sushi materials supplier. You will also need a very sharp chef’s knife or santoku. A bamboo mat is useful, but not necessary, and can also be found at an Asian grocer. Some common sides for sushi include soy sauce for dipping, wasabi paste (the spicy green stuff!) and pickled ginger (which helps clear the palate between different sushi).

First Step

The first thing you want to do is prepare the sushi rice, since it has the greatest preparation time. You need to rinse the rice very thoroughly and then let it sit in water for around 30 minutes. The soaking allows water to soften the rice grains and will make the rice cook properly. I find that 2 cups of rice prepares around 4 full maki rolls (or around 32 pieces of sushi).

Second Step

While the rice is soaking is an ideal time to prepare your components. The most common base ingredient is raw fish. Common species used include yellowfin tuna, salmon, squid or eel. Make sure your fish is very fresh (never frozen!) and preferably sashimi-grade. Go to your supermarket and ask if they have sashimi-grade fish. If they doesn’t know what you’re talking about, go somewhere else! I like to buy all my fish at the Asian market because I know it’s fresh and is of the proper quality for making sushi. In addition to fish, sushi often contains other ingredients to add different flavors or textures like avocado, cucumber, green onion, cream cheese and spicy sauces. Feel free to get a little crazy when it comes to putting ingredients into your sushi roll, as long as you keep it under 3 ingredients or so. I’ve also had delicious vegan sushi rolls that featured bananas, sweet potatoes or tofu. You’re going to require around an 8′ long strip of each one of your ingredients. How thick you cut them depends on how many ingredients you want in your roll, but i find around 1/4th inch square is pretty good for three ingredients.

Third Step

Next you need to prepare the rice. The rice should be prepared in a rice cooker which will make perfect rice AND keep your kitchen cool, but if you don’t have a rice cooker, you’ll have to make do with a microwave or stovetop. Preparing Japanese sushi rice in the microwave can be very difficult and I would strongly suggest you use the stovetop method if you don’t have a rice cooker. Place the rice in a medium sized pot with the water level just slightly above the rice level. Bring the rice to a boil, stirring frequently. Do NOT let the rice stick to the bottom or side of the pan. After the water level is down below the rice level, cover the pot and put it on low heat for 8-9 minutes.

Fourth Step

While the rice is cooking, you can prepare the rice seasoning from the rice vinegar, sugar and salt. It’s this mixture that gives sushi rice its notable sweet and sour flavor, so it’s very important to get this right, but thankfully, it’s not especially {tough|tricky|difficult] to get right. When I’m preparing 2 cups of rice, I like to use 3.5 tablespoons of vinegar, 2 tablespoons of sugar and 2 teaspoons of salt. Put all the ingredients in a small saucepan and heat until the sugar and salt dissolve. Do not let the mixture start to boil; it should never get that hot. Stir the mixture to try to make the sugar and salt dissolve fully and then keep it on very low heat until the rice is ready.

Fifth Step

When the rice is done, remove it from the pot into a wooden bowl. Treat the rice carefully-you don’t want to crush any of the grains. If any rice is stuck to the side or bottom of the pot, leave it. You don’t want any crispy rice in the sushi. It’s important to use a wooden bowl because the vinegar seasoning is about to be poured in and the vinegar may react with the metal. With the rice in the bowl, drizzle the seasoning over it and cut it in (don’t stir!) with a wooden spoon. You are just trying to coat the grains of rice with the mixture. If you stir too forecefully, you may damage the grains.

Sixth Step

Let the rice cool for a while. You need cool rice to work with when making sushi. I like to take advantage of this time to prepare the rest of my ingredients if I haven’t done so already. I also like to tidy up the kitchen at this time (you’ll be shocked how much mess you’ve made in the last 5 steps). In a sushi restaurant this is generally the time when a chef’s assistant will actually fan the rice to help it to cool down more quickly.

Seventh Step

When the rice is cool, take a small hunk of it and spread it over the bottom 5/6ths of the nori, which should be on the bamboo mat if you have one. Nori has two sides, a shiny side and a rough side. Make sure you place the shiny side down. The rice should be spread thinly enough to still see little bits of green through the rice, although you can spread it thicker than that if you have only one ingredient. When you’ve covered the whole nori sheet except the little bit at the top, you’re good. It helps to spread the sticky rice by keeping a small bowl of water nearby to dip your fingers into, so they don’t stick and get messy. Last Step

Lay your ingredients near the middle-bottom of the nori. Roll up the bottom section of the nori over the ingredients. If you have a bamboo mat, use it to make sure the roll has equal pressure applied on it and is packed tightly. Continue shifting the bamboo mat to roll up more and more of the sushi roll. When you reach the part with no rice, you can roll it over and seal it with a bit of water. Then, use a sharp knife to cut the sushi roll in half. A slight sawing motion is needed and it helps if the knife is dipped into hot water first. Double up the two halves and cut THEM in half to make quarters, and each quarter in half to make eighths. Arrange your sushi rolls on a plate and serve with soy sauce, and wasabi and ginger if you desire. Enjoy!

David Fishman is a blogger and sushi lover from Atlanta, GA. Take a look at his website How To make Sushi At Home and follow him as he blogs about awesome sushi recipes, more in-depth instructions about how to make sushi places to get sushi equipment, amazing pictures of homemade sushi and the ongoing story of his journey to become a sushi master. You can also submit pictures of YOUR homemade sushi and he’ll feature them on his site.

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I was intrigued about the name “Primal Sushi” so I checked out the video. What’s primal about this is that you use cooked quinoa instead of sushi rice and I didn’t even know what quinoa is or how it’s pronounced, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. It says “a species of goosefoot (Chenopodium), is a grain-like crop grown primarily for its edible seeds. It is a pseudocereal rather than a true cereal, or grain, as it is not a member of the grass family. As a chenopod, quinoa is closely related to species such as beets, spinach, and tumbleweeds. Its leaves are also eaten as a leaf vegetable, much like amaranth, but the commercial availability of quinoa greens is currently limited.” Long explanation, but I still don’t know what it tastes like. Only the way to find out is to actually use it for consumption. Lovely Sarah demonstrates how it’s made. I love her idea of using chili sauce and sesame seeds. Thank you Sarah!