The key to good sushi is the rice. The first step is to measure out and wash the rice...over and over and over and over again! My research said this would take about 5 minutes but it really took 7 or 8 minutes of filling the bowl with cool water, swirling the rice around, straining it, putting it back in the bowl and starting again-all the while trying not to lose a single grain of rice cuz heaven forbid the measurement be off...even by a grain of rice. The water started out very cloudy and this is the end result...
Next it was to cook the rice. I should have listened and bought a rice cooker but I couldn't justify the 10 dollars if for some reason I was NEVER going to make sushi again. What if it turned out horribly and then I spent 10 whole dollars on an appliance that will be a dust catcher for the next 10 years! That's a dollar a year I wasted. Never mind the fact the I usually cook some kind of rice once a week and could use the rice cooker for that not just sushi rice. ANYWAY. If you don't use a rice cooker AND you are a "chef sinner" who owns an electric range...(Gasp!) you have to use two burners. Cook the rice in a small pot on a medium high burner for 15 minutes then switch to a high burner for 2 minutes then back to the medium burner for another 7 minutes. Take it off the burner and let it sit for 15 minutes. At this point I would have given my right arm for a 100 dollar rice cooker, much less a 10 dollar one!!! After it sits then you add...
rice vinegar and sugar and mix it around. I had to switch bowls from the metal to plastic cuz who knew that you can't add the vinegar to sushi rice in a metal bowl otherwise it tastes funny. I thought about ignore that little tidbit but decided not to risk it. The you let it sit for 15 MORE minutes. By this time my children were turning into ravenous monsters.
We were ready to roll..or not. You have to toast the Nori (or seaweed wrap) about 30 seconds each, shiny side down in a hot skillet. Okay NOW we are ready to roll. Thankfully I chose simple fillings for our first attempt at this. Crab and Cream cheese, kind of a stripped down California roll. I laid it all out...
And rolled it up. Not tooooo bad.
Second only in difficulty to the rice cooking was the cutting of the sushi and as you can plainly see...it's not pretty. Yummy. Really yummy. Yet down right ridiculous lookin'.
This was a hands on meal, everyone had a turn with the mat and rolled their own. Emily was more than serious about making hers perfect and was truly annoyed at the "stickiness" of the rice.
I love Niles' expression...
He kept saying.."is this right Mom?"
Malcolm was next....
Not bad...
After the first roll, Emily was just eating the crab, Niles no longer was trying to cut anything and Malcolm was ready to try again.
Meanwhile Thomas was next to me in the kitchen cooking up some claims. More seafood that one has to work for to eat. Open the shell with a mitt, add hot sauce, dig out. Boy I really made my kids earn their dinner don't I?
I Have a new found respect for Sushi Chefs and rice cookers. Both of which I will be paying for in the future!
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