Easy Homemade Sushi!

Sushi is definitely one of my favourite foods but sadly in my town there is only one restaurant that serves it and it’s super expensive. As a result I never got to eat sushi very much which sucked horribly.

One day I stumbled across Potholes & Pantyhose post about how easy it to make sushi at home here. I must say she certainly did make it sound easy so I set about to doing some research to learn a little bit more then went out to get my ingredients. I even discovered that sushi really does not have to cost that much!

My shopping list consisted of rice vinegar ($5), seaweed ($2), a bamboo rolling mat ($2), wasabi ($3), imitation crab ($3), and sushi rice ($5). That’s only a total of $20 and apart from the imitation crab and seaweed everything is left over to make several more delicious meals of sushi! I will note I also used cucumber, carrot, and avocado but I don’t count those since I almost always have them on hand.

Now onto the procedure! First I rinsed my rice and then cooked it according to package instructions. (1 1/2 cups of water per 1 cup of rice brought to a boil then covered and simmered for 12 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to stand covered for 10 minutes.)

As the rice was cooking I cut up my carrots and cucumber into long strips, chopped up my avocado, and laid out the rest of the ingredients.

Sun Rice is the brand of rice I used; it was specifically called Sushi Rice so figured it was my safest bet haha. You want to make sure to use a short grain Japanese rice. Normal rice like white, jasmine, basmati etc. will not become sticky enough in a non-mushy way. You also want to have a container of water by your side, water is your best friend, it prevents the rice from sticking to your fingers.

Here is my cooked, cooled rice and sushi vinegar. To make the vinegar I mixed together 4 tbsp rice vinegar, 2 tbsp sugar, and 1/2 tsp salt as per my rice packages directions. However once I mixed it all together I only spooned 3 tbsp of it onto my rice. I found I had to heat the vinegar in the microwave for 30 seconds to get it to combine. Another important note is to to make sure the rice and the vinegar are in plastic, glass, or wood bowls. Metallic bowls do something to the composition of the vinegar apparently.

Once you have all your ingredients you want to add your sushi vinegar to the rice and gently mix it until combined. Then lay out a slice of seaweed onto your bamboo mat, wet your hands, and go to town. You want your rice only to be a grain or 2 thick on top of the seaweed, keep the edges about 1/4 inch around free of rice, and layer your ingredients about 1/3 of the way from the end. Here is an amazing video showing how to prepare and roll your sushi.

My first roll turned out quite messy and I rolled it quite loose but it got better as I went along.

This was my 3rd roll I made! Much neater!

My 1 cup of sushi rice made enough for all 4 of these rolls. Each roll cuts up into 8 pieces so we had a total of 32 pieces of sushi which fully fed both Charles and I. These turn out to be a lot more filling then one thinks!

And here is what the finished product looks like all chopped up! I served this with soya sauce mixed with some wasabi. Enjoy!

Have any of you ever tried your hand at making sushi from home? What about any other exotic foods? Feel free to share your favourite recipes!