Sushi night - 1st Brisbane edition

Written on 10:47 p.m. by My gratitude journal

Those of you who know me best know very well how much I love sushi and know that I've now established a tradition to organise sushi nights at home and have everyone contribute to the preparation of this delicious meal.

Being in Brisbane did not stop this tradition. So my parents invited two of their best friends over for dinner and a crash course of making your own sushi! See how it went below:

Step 1 - Making the rice. You need sushi rice or Calrose rice. Cook it according to the instructions and then season it with a mix of rice vinegar, water and sugar. Spread the rice on a cookie platter to cool down...

Step 2: while the rice is cooling, prepare the veggies. For the tempura vegetables, slice sweet potatoes, onion rings and zuchinis. For the maki rolls, cut carrots, celeri, zuchinis and avocadoes into narrow sticks.

Step 3 - Preparing the tempura batter. A recipe can be found here. Once the batter's ready, throw the veggies in it and then in the fryer untill a nice gold colour appears. Let them sit on paper towels to absorb the excess in oil and serve with tempura dipping sauce. Good job dad!

Step 4 - The nigiris. Nigiri means 'hooked on' or 'hung on' in japanese and refers to the piece of raw fish hooked around a small block of rice. You will need a bowl of water to rinse your hands between every nigiri and stop the rice from sticking too much to your hands. Press a small quantity of rice really hard in your hand to make it stick together and then, hook a sashimi (slice of raw fish) onto it. Repeat. You can use a tiny bit of wasabi between the fish and the rice to add flavour and make them stick better.

Step 5 a) - Rolling the makis! For this, you will need to find Nori Roasted Seaweed which can be found in every chinese or japanese supermarket and a bamboo mat to roll it. Place the seaweed on the mat, spread the rice on the seaweed everywhere with the exception of the last part to be rolled (see picture above) so the seaweed can stick to itself. Then, line up a couple of veggies and fish of your choice on the rice portion closest to you. You can also add some seasoning like a mix of wasabi and mayo or a mix of seafood sauce and mayo or some sliced marinated ginger to your roll before rolling. Roll the seaweed with the rice on the inside and make it stick on the end.

Step 5 b) - Rolling it inside out or 'californian style' with the rice on the outside! I won't try to explain it here but if you look at the pictures you can see it involves a celophan film and putting the mat after the rice is stuck onto the nori seaweed... Good luck!