Hello again!
In this week’s blog post we will be finishing up our sushi unit with some techniques on rolling and forming sushi! This will be using the ingredients mentioned in the last post(s), so be sure you check those out first. We’re going to first go over the preparation of the ingredients than the actual steps on how to form your sushi.
Preparing Ingredients
Cucumber – Peel if desired, then slice thinly into strips until the cucumber resembles a “matchstick” consistency. Keep in icy water to preserve crispness while you prepare other ingredients.
Avocado – Cut in half, around the pit. Twist the two halves opposite rotations and gently pull them apart to separate halves. Carefully, while firmly holding the non-pitted half in your palm, tap your knife quickly into the pit until it slices only a little in – it doesn’t take that much force! With your knife partially stuck in the pit, twist clockwise until the pit spins and releases from the avocado. Holding the avocado half, slice gently away from you into thin strips, as to not pierce the outside skin. Take a spoon and generously scoop your sliced avocado flesh out of the skin onto a plate, and cover if desired until needed.
Fish – Slice thin, long, pieces against the grain of the fish, removing skin if needed. These pieces should almost look like extra-long rectangles of raw fish, slice them just large enough to fit in your rolls. Refrigerate until needed.
Nori – Slice a couple of inches of the seaweed sheet off so instead of a perfect square it’s a more manageable rectangle. Place it flat onto your bamboo rolling mat with the rough side facing you, and the glossy side facing the table.
Rolling and Preparing the Sushi
Note: To avoid the sticky rice sticking to your fingers instead of the seaweed, I recommend using a bowl of bold water to dip your fingers in before touching the rice. This keeps your fingers from sticking to the rice and makes the process much quicker and more comfortable. Also regarding the rolling mat, make sure the pieces of bamboo are horizontally facing you, to allow it to roll smoothly.
- With wet hands, grab a small handfull of rice and spread it across your nori sheet on top of the rolling mat, with a centimeter of seaweed peeking out on each end.
- In a line horizontal to you, lay out your cucumber, avocado, and fish pieces. Be conservative with this step as its super easy to over-stuff your sushi roll.
- Once your fillings and rice are in place, its time to roll.
- Just like the picture above, use your fingertips to slowly lift the edge of the mat and curl it into the center of the roll. Continue this, lifting your bamboo mat if it threatens to go into the roll, continuing the fluid motion until the two ends of seaweed meet.
- Now, use the mat to shape your roll, laying it down on top of the roll and firmly pressing on every side of the sushi to compress it and ensure its glued together properly.
- Using a sharp, wet knife, cut the roll evenly down the middle, then evenly down the middle of the halves, and so fourth until you have 8 even pieces of sushi.
- Serve with soy sauce, pickled ginger, and wasabi if desired.
And with that, we finish our sushi-making unit. I hope you found this short but action-packed post useful in utilizing the ingredients we mentioned the prior weeks to create some delicious sushi. I will include two links below on creating nigiri, the more traditional sushi type using just fish and rice, and another link on rolling in case you’re a visual learner and need some extra help. As always happy cooking, and I’ll see you next week!
Here’s a straightforward tutorial by WikiHow, a free information hub for almost any topic.
Here’s a different tutorial on making at-home nigiri with simple ingredients.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
