Homemade Sushi Rolls!
Last weekend there was a
Ramen Festival/JPop Summit in Japantown in SF, it was total madness. I wouldn’t
recommend it to anyone unless you have a real desire to be stuck in a huge
crowd of people. There were so many people you’re just stuck. Not slow moving
stuck but just flat out, bring a chair and sit, stuck. I was excited for the
Ramen (of course its food driven) but when I arrived and found out how long the
lines were, first I was disappointed and then decided it was totally not worth
the wait. It was a 3 hour line just to get to the ordering part, who knows how
long it’d be before you actually get to eat?! That’s too much effort not to
mention I usually like to enjoy my noodles in a much more relaxed environment.
So instead my friend and I ventured off to the food trucks section and picked
up some Japanese onigiri (Japanese rice balls) which didn’t go any faster but
luckily I got to watch them make it so I was distracted enough. After 45
minutes of waiting, we got our food and 5 minutes later ... all was devoured.
Such a long wait and it was so short lived. While I was there watching them
make it, I thought to myself “That seems easy enough, I’m going to make my own.
Forget waiting 45 minutes in line! I’ll have it done in 10 and then I’ll get to
enjoy it quicker and in the comforts of my own home! Yup, it’s decided.”
Of course I was ecstatic
about the idea and this is how sad I sound sometimes but I couldn’t wait for
the morning to come so that I could go to the store and get all the ingredients
I’d need for this experiment… waking up at 7am did not help. Unlike me, most
places are not up and running until at least 8 or 9am. Anyways when I finally
gathered all my goodies at Mistuwa Supermarket in San Jose, I was ready to rock and roll (no
pun intended…)!
30 minutes later… this
onigiri project was a lot harder than I had imagined. I was not coordinating
the seaweed size with my rice triangle very well and either I’d run out of
seaweed wrap OR have too much wrap… needless to say, first attempt fail. By
this time I was getting hungry and my mom was starting to come into the kitchen
to start dinner and sees the seaweed wraps and said “Oh! Sushi!” Well that was
not my intention but after 5 more minutes of struggle, I gave up and turned it
into a sushi project. Given I’ve never made that before either, it’s not a bad
trade off, not to mention I already have all the ingredients AND no more trying
to size the seaweed wraps! Just roll with it! Ha! Ha…Yah I’m lame, whatever.
Rolling your own sushi is
unbelievably easy and fun! Giving them silly names is the best part, well aside
from getting to get them later. If you don’t own that bamboo mat that you see
people rolling sushi with, no fear! One thing I learned from watching lots of
sushi chefs, use plastic wrap! They don’t stick and you can just peel them
right off the roll. Now drum roll please…. Here are my own personal creations:
The Hot Mess:
spicy shrimp and crab meat
(mayo and sriracha hot sauce), avocado, and tuna
Runaway Chicken
Chicken breast, avocado,
(cucumber would be a nice touch too), and takoyaki mayo sauce.
Crab Fest
Real crab meat with daikon
radish shreds mixed with spicy mayo, imitation crab meat with wasabi mayo (or can substitute with yogurt dip)
The Raw Raw
Salmon, tuna, and avocado
Cutting the sushi is
tricky business unless you have a really sharp knife which I didn’t so I used a
pair of kitchen shears and snipped along the seaweed wrap all the way round and
then finally giving it one huge clean snip thru the middle. Now if you have
neither, by keeping it in the plastic wrap, it should also make it easier to
cut thru as well but with this method you’re also going through a lot more
plastic wrap too… This last suggestion is only speculation, I’ve never tried it
that way and I’ve only seen it at sushi places…but thought I’d throw that out
there anyways.
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