Making sushi at home

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My 12 year old generally does most of the rolling. With a rice cooker it’s a quick last minute dinner for us. I start the rice then run out to the fish store, stopping by the grocery hoping there are a few ripe avocados. The rice is done by the time I return and then it’s not too long to get everything else set.

For tips, we always have a bowl of water for our fingers, we always clean the knife before cutting each roll. I keep the bulk of the fish in the fridge and just take out a couple of roll’s worth at a time so that we roll and eat and then roll some more and the fish stays chilled. Having 2 rolling stations set up means both kids can roll, or one of them and me, so it goes fast and is part of the entertainment. Always make more rice than you think you’ll need.

Pics of mostly kid made sushi:


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I am unreasonably angry and impressed at the skill of your child.

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She is impressive! But i dont think she has any special skills or talent with sushi. Having a sushi mat and wetting our fingers makes it not too hard. Still, she will be delighted when i tell her. Isn’t it the job of tweens to impress and anger us? :slight_smile:

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That certainly seemed to be the primary function of mine, yes…

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If you’re asking about garnishes, I’m not much of a garnish guy. Everything I put on a plate I intend to be eaten. Hence, you might see a blob of wasabi (fake - don’t have easy access to real) and a mound of pickled ginger, but that’s it.

If you’re asking about accompaniments, it depends on the occasion. If it’s part of an observation (like Oshogatsu) or I’m feeling like making traditional Japanese home cooking, I’ll probably make some teriyaki chicken, some rolled omelet (known at the ricepad pad as ā€œlog o’ tamagoā€), some store-bought kamaboko (the homemade experiment was a disaster), and a few pickles (hakusai no tsukemono, sunomono, et al).

If the only reason I’m making sushi is because I crave it, I may not even bother to plate it. I make it, leave it on the cutting board, and let everybody know it’s ready and to come get what they want.

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That looks pretty good! I’m wondering about your timing, though. Do you season the rice? If so, with what? And when?

Excellent!

For my rice seasoning, I use the following ratio:

4 cups cooked rice (2 cups before cooking)

1/4 cup rice vinegar heated gently with 2 tsp sugar and 1 tsp salt.

I don’t own a hangiri. A flat bamboo spatula and a wide mixing bowl seem to do fine.

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That’s generally my ratio, too, but I use a little more. I think it’s because I learned to dress the rice from my grandmother but only after her taste buds started to lose sensitivity due to age, so in her 60s and 70s she was using a lot more su than she would have in her 20s and 30s.

I posed the question to @kazhound, though, because if

that suggest to me that either the rice is not getting seasoned OR perhaps they’re making sushi with warm rice. Properly made shari needs to cool to room temperature after getting dressed but before commencing with sushi-ing.

I don’t have a hangiri, either. I just use a roasting pan. I also don’t sit over the rice and fan it while it cools. I just slash/fold it periodically as it cools. At the restaurant, I was often the flunky that had to sit with the rice and a fan (usually used a menu, IIRC) to fan the rice. I’m done with that BS!

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So I asked the kids to unplug the rice cooker as soon as it’s done, then when I get home I open it up and season the rice when it’s hot. I put a fraction of the rice kind of loosely spread out in a huge bowl, so it cools pretty quickly. By the time I’ve cut the first batch of fish, avocado, cukes, etc, the rice is mostly (but you’re correct not totally) cooled. By the time we’re on the second batch it’s almost entirely cooled, and by the 3rd it’s 100% cool.

Our sushi is not proper or perfect, but it’s better than a lot of places I’ve had sushi! And it’s pretty quick which is a help when juggling kids and everything else.

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Oh i forgot to say that i use comparable ratios as mentioned above for seasoning, i usually make a batch and store it in my cupboard so it’s ready to go in situations like this. Last time i used some commercial seasoned vinegar and it wasn’t as good.

Who cares??

That’s more important!

Even importanter!

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That’s my jug of su. I make up a big batch as needed and keep it in the pantry. I cheap out on the vinegar, though. Plain ol’ white vinegar was good enough for my grandmother, so it’s good enough for me.

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I have to correct my earlier statement about quantities and ratios. I use a LOT more su in my shari. In my haste, I misread your post. I use between 1/4 and 1/3 cup of su for EACH cup of rice. When the rice is hot and I first add the su, I always think, ā€œOh, man…that’s too much!ā€, but it all gets absorbed as the rice cools. And without fail, every native Japanese who has eaten my sushi tells me it tastes like the sushi back home.

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Inhaled (no pics ) something like poke, and now trying tiradito again!


In the recipe, although the text begins by saying "it’s served with a tart, spicy citrus-chile marinade known as leche de tigre ", I saw no steps including the leche de tigre. There’s a picture of what looks like aji amarillo being stirred into something creamy. :thinking:

Apparently you have to eat it soon after it’s dressed!

Zesty! :open_mouth: I ended up scraping some off the aji amarillo sauce off. …And followed up with a feta chaser.

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Every. Single. Time. It’s like I have a block against retaining this information.