Japanese cuisine has a really special place in my heart. I’m always amazed that how much effort Japanese put into one simple task. I saw one of the Gordon Ramsay clips where he went to a Japanese restaurant to learn about Japanese food. The apprentice there told him that he has spent a year just washing rice. The dedication of Japanese chefs amaze me. With all the passion and life they infused into their cuisine, Japanese cuisine is one of the most accepted cuisine style in the world.
Today, we are going to make sushi rolls. We are nowhere close to authentic sushi rolls. However, we shouldn’t forbid ourselves from trying these awesome cooking technique and tasty food! Making sushi rolls is quite fun and I actually made this into a group activity. Let’s check out how to make sushi rolls!
Ingredients:
4 cups of cooked rice
4 sheets of seaweed sheet
1 Tamagoyaki – Japanese omelet egg
2 Persian or Japanese cucumber
1 bag of crab stick
1 bag of Kanpyo – Japanese pickled seaweed
4 tbsp of rice vinegar
2 tbsp of sugar
1 tsp of salt
1 cup of water
½ cup of sushi vinegar
Cook rice, you can use pretty much any brand of rice as long as it’s short grain. My personal recommendation is Homai California Calrose. Cheap enough but it’s still relatively good quality rice to make sushi rice. In order to cook rice, you should have a steamer or rice cooker. If you don’t have one yet, I strongly recommend you to get one. Follow the instruction for each type of rice cooking device to make good rice.
While the rice is cooking, we can prepare our sushi filling.
Cut everything into long strips. For Tamagoyaki, you can buy one from your Japanese store, but if you are thrifty like me, here is my shortcut to make it
Ingredients:
5 eggs
3 Tbsp of Mirin
1 tsp of sugar
1 tsp of salt
The traditional Tamagoyaki is made by folding all the egg layers together, the texture is unique and it has to be cooked just right. Like all other Japanese cuisine, it’s a sacred and respectable art. However, if you are like me who only been making sushi for 20 min so far. Here is my suggested way to make Tamagoyaki.
Make the Tamagoyaki mixture by mixing all the ingredient above.
Stir fry at medium low heat until it’s half-cooked
Take a glasslock container, or any rectangular shape of container made of glass or steel, grease the inside
Pour the half-cooked Tamagoyaki mixture in the glassware
If you have remaining mixture, pour that in to fill the space.
Steam cook it for 12 min, until it’s cooked. Open the lid once every 3 min so your temperature is under boiling point. If you reach boiling point inside of your steam cooker, your egg will look like honeycomb, which is not desirable.
Use a rubber cake knife to carefully cast it out of the glassware
Here, your “B-” Tamagoyaki, just a little bit above passing grade 🙂
Take your bamboo mat and wrap it with plastic wrap. It’s ugly but it will do the job. It’s easier to throw out plastic wrap then try to clean all the rice particles stuck on your bamboo mat
Put one seaweed sheet, long side facing you. Shiny side facing down. You supposed to toast the seaweed sheet over open flame for 2 seconds for better taste, however, it’s ok to proceed without this step.
Prepare your vinegar water. Mix a cup of water with ½ cup of vinegar
At this step your rice should be done. Take out the rice, wait for the temperature to cool down to approx. 170F. Mix 4 cup of rice, 4 tbsp of rice vinegar, 2 tbsp of sugar and 1 tsp of salt to make sushi rice. Get ready to make sushi, do not let the sushi rice cool down too far or it will be hard to handle.
Wash your hands thoroughly and dip your hands in vinegar water so the rice won’t stick to your hands, no tool is better than a pair of clean hands!
Take 1 cup of rice, carefully spread it across the surface
Place your filling on top of it. Make a little groove that is ⅓ toward you. Place your filling
If you want to do rice side out, carefully flip the sheet before wrapping it.
Take the ⅓ of rice sheet to cover the filling, press down gently but firmly
Finish the wrapping
Damp your knife with vinegar water constantly so it won’t stick to your knife
Carefully cut it into sizes
Enjoy!
- 4 cups of cooked rice
- 4 sheets of seaweed sheet
- 1 Tamagoyaki - Japanese omelet egg
- 2 Persian or Japanese cucumber
- 1 bag of crab stick
- 1 bag of Kanpyo - Japanese pickled seaweed
- 4 tbsp of rice vinegar
- 2 tbsp of sugar
- 1 tsp of salt
- 1 cup of water
- ½ cup of sushi vinegar
- 5 eggs
- 3 Tbsp of Mirin
- 1 tsp of sugar
- 1 tsp of salt
- Cook rice and prepare the ingredient while it’s cooking
- Prepare your choice of filling
- Once the rice is cooked, let it cool down to about 170F
- Mix rice with rice vinegar, sugar and salt
- Set aside the sushi rice for later use, do not let it cool down too far before making it.
- Wrap your bamboo mat with plastic wrap
- Take one seaweed sheet, shiny side down
- Prepare vinegar water for handling rice
- Dip hands in vinegar water, grab a handful of sushi rice (approx. 1 cup)
- Evenly spread the sushi rice across the seaweed sheet
- (optional) if you want to do rice side out, carefully flip the seaweed sheet with rice
- place your sushi roll filling at ⅓ toward you
- Roll the side closer to you to cover the filling, press it firm but gentle
- continue to roll to cover the whole sushi rolls
- Wipe your cutting knife with vinegar water
- Carefully cut them to the right size
Thanks for your good website and information !