How to Make Sushi

Sushi has a very long tradition in Japan and is today one of the most famous foods in the World.
From the ancient fermented rice and fish to the more innovative sea weed rolling style, Sushi is a dish that can be prepared in various styles and with a wide range of ingredients according to tastes.


In here I will demonstrate the way I like it and perhaps you could also try and have a go. Some people who hate eating fish see Sushi as a no no food. However Sushi can be eaten as I mentioned in various forms and flavours and the recipe I'm sharing here today is actually fish free and pretty much done with ingredients which are very common to our Western culture. So hope you enjoy the recipe and if you have any questions please drop a comment so I can answer your question.

Shrimp and Crab Sushi Recipe:

Before starting to cook it make sure you have the following ingredients as follows:

• Sushi Rice
• Japanese Rice Vinegar
• Sushi Nori Seaweed Sheets
• Sushi Mat
• 1 Avocado
• Castor Sugar
• Salt
• Crab Sticks
• Prawns/Shrimps (can be either small or big, doesn't matter)
•  Soft Spreadable White Cheese (normally I use Philadelphia Cheese)
• Half a Cucumber

So depending what brands you use, your start up table of ingredients should like something similar to the following picture:

Stage 1 

So after checking you all the necessary ingredients is time to start the cooking and the first thing to cook is the Sushi rice as follows:

• Put half a bag of rice (250g) into a bowl and wash with cold water. Repeat 3 or 4 times and then drain rice in a sieve

• Add 330ml of water and the washed rice to a saucepan. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes with the lid on.
• Turn off the heat and leave to stand for 15-20 minutes. Do not open the lid.

Stage 2

When the rice is ready the second stage is to prepare and add the Sushi Vinegar. You can do so as follows:

•  Mix a sauce of vinegar, sugar and salt being that 2 table spoons of rice vinegar, 1tsp of castor sugar and 1 tsp of salt (fine salt.)
• Make sure that you mix the sauce to fully dilution so that no sugar or salt can be seen. It may take quite a while to achieve this.
• When sauce is ready, pour it on top of the cooked Sushi rice and mix the rice with a spoon to ensure the sauce is evenly spread.

 Stage 3

Now that the rice is ready it's time to mix it with the ingredients. Before you start this task, make sure your ingredients are fully chopped/ready as follows:

 When all the ingredients are ready to placement it's time to lay your Sushi mat and on top of it a Seaweed sheet as follows: (from now on this process will now be repeated until you have used all rice)

 

The first ingredient to lay on the Seaweed sheet is the rice. Wash your hands and pick small portions of rice with your hands and start to fill the Seaweed sheet. Make sure you flat the rice and that is evenly spread on the Seaweed sheet. You should cover the all area but 2cm on top so that you will be able to seal the roll. The next picture is how it should look like after the sheet is correctly covered with the rice: (for an easier process have a bowl of warm water close by so you can wet your hands every pick as this can get really sticky which makes it harder to spread the rice)

Next place the cutted slices of crab stick

 Then the half sliced shrimp

 Then the slices of peeled cucumber

 Then the tea spoon portion of soft Cheese (Philadelphia Style)

 Finally the slices of riped avocado

Stage 4 

After all ingredients are properly placed, it's time to roll the Seaweed sheet. This can be achieve by following the steps as follow: (make sure you put some pressure when rolling and specially when ending each rolling stage so the size of the roll will be right and all ingredients won't be loose)

Stage 5

Now that you have a few Sushi rolls done, it's time to end the job by cutting it into slices. There's no requirement of how big each slice should be, but it's better not to be either too large or too small. The normal size is 2cm wide. You are not required to measure each cut, but try to cut the first one as 2cm size and then follow the rest by eye. Have a very thin and sharp knife available and wet the knife's blade every 2 cuts to ensure smooth cuts. Successful cuts should look as follows:

So here is your home made Sushi in 5 easy steps. You can now either eat is as it is or dip it on soya sauce for extra flavour. Bon apetit!!!!

Next blog we will be discussing about educational tools and we will be doing a review on bank statement template reconciliation so stay tuned and follow us up for more ideas.