College Student or Sushi Chef?

The question is, who doesn’t love sushi? If you are one of the rare specimen who doesn’t, read this blog post and I may change your mind. I felt like being adventurous over winter break and go from college student to sushi chef over night. After watching multiple YouTube videos and browsing several blogs, I gathered up enough information and ventured to the nearest Lunds & Byerlys to purchase the ingredients for each roll I was determined to create.

The rolls and the ingredients necessary:

California Roll – imitation crab, sliced (matchstick size) carrots and cucumbers, cream cheese, sliced avocado.

Smoked Salmon – sliced smoked salmon, cream cheese, avocado and cucumber.

Shrimp tempura – small cooked tempura battered shrimp, sliced cucumber, avocado and sliced carrots.

The biggest challenge that I found was cooking the sushi rice. How to perfect sushi rice (other than researching before) is to know how to prepare it after it is cooked. We decided to use a rice cooker, but you can also cook it in a regular cooking pan. It is important to remember to add half a cup more of water than rice. I made three cups of rice and used three and a half cups of water. Once the rice is cooked, and to keep it as sticky as possible, add a mixture of ¾ cup of rice wine vinegar, two teaspoons of sugar and one teaspoon of salt. Mix these ingredients together and drizzle over the rice while stirring (with a wooden spoon). Let this sit for five minutes so the rice can absorb the liquid mixture that was added.

Practice makes perfect, so start with a small amount of rice and learn how to roll with a bamboo sushi mat that you can purchase at any cooking store. We purchased ours at the Kitchen Window.

I completely recommend to try and make your own sushi. It makes for a perfect date night idea, as well as a fun holiday party activity.

Lets get rollin’

Bon Appetite my fellow students