Homemade Sushi

Again my sister in law braved the strange foods and helped me get over my fears of sushi making too.
We gathered the supplies: nori (seaweed) wrappers, sushi rice, sushi vinegar and spices, and several sushi fillings.

I will admit that the firsf three rolls I made I refused to take a pictures of. They were that bad.
Which brings us to common mistakes #1: overfilling nori with rice and other fillings. Results include not enough to wrap and seal roll and/or ingredients busting out the ends.

After getting a good tight roll, I discoverd common mistake #2: Learning a gentle hand and cutting with a sharp knife. This is what ruins most of my rolls. I squeezed the rolls too hard or the knife would mash instead of cut.

I tried making a rice on the outside roll. They were extremely difficult for me because it was harder to slice into the nori after the knife got sticky from the rice.

By the end of the evening I had eaten a lot of mistakes and had some yummy lumpy rolls to eat.
Recently, I tried making sushi for a lunch my house. Kit can be odd about non-steak-&-taters meals so I was worried at first. He loved it!

These are traditional sushi rolls with raw fish. I had to consider my budget when making this lunch. The fillings for my sushi were canned flakey crab and cream cheese. I took canned tiny shrimp and marinated them in lime juice, garlic, ginger, salt and pepper. The result was a spicy shrimp roll. The ginger was perfecto.

Which leads me to my final sushi making tip and the best advice we heard from the dozens of youtube videos we watched. Give yourself a break. The best way to make good sushi is keep trying. It proves itself too, my second attempt at making sushi for Kit and me was a huge sucess. I had to eater fewer dud rolls than the first time.
Can’t wait to try different ingredients and give it another whirl.

Have you ever tried sushi making at home?
Have any tried and true tips you want to share?

Day 321: Onigiri {Recipe Revealed!!}

First time trying to make onigiri! I have honestly never eaten them so I doubt mine taste very authentic, but we thought they were tasty.

I did a lot of internet research and found out that most of the rice we use in the states is long grain. Sushi or rice balls (onigiri) takes short grain glutenous rice. Take a closer look at rice.

I had some friends tell me you can do it with other kinds of rice but I trusted the internet pros for my first time. I can jack with the recipe more when I am comfortable.

There is a lot to preparing the rice. Washing, resting, soaking, cooking, and more resting. These are the instructions I followed: At Just Hungry blog.

There is a weirdness (typo) where she talks about temps to cook rice. I am legit and make my rice on the stove top.
So here is the clarification:
I boiled high, once the rice started bubbling (boiling), I started a timer for 1 minute, lowered to medium heat for 5 minutes, then lowered to simmer for 10 minutes. I put on my tight light after I reduced to medium heat and had to stuff my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t lift the lid.

Also, let it be known that I added 4 tablespoons of a dried vegetables packet to my rice. It soaked with the rice for an hour. I don’t know the proper name of it because I got it at an international food store.

I did let the rice cool with a towel on top of it for 15 minutes. It still burnt my fingers when I began working with it. More fluffing sufficiently cooled it.

My fillings were drained can of tuna mixed with pepper and mayo, and crispy crumbled up turkey bacon.

I laid out my fillings, nori wrap (cut into smaller pieces), pot of rice, plate for the finished product, and a shallow bowl with salt and cool water in it.
I washed my hands and got to work. By the time I was nearly finished I had figured out (through trial and error) how to make the triangle shapes. This picture helped somewhat.

Thank you, resource.
Here was another helpful link on how to make the onigiri. Pay particular attention to coating your hands with salt water or frequently cleaning them to make sure the rice doesn’t stick to you.
Just Bento also has a fantastic FAQ page.

As you can imagine there was much squealing and dancing when I finished. I was literally holding my breath through most of the rice cooking.
The hubster was skeptical of a meal not consisting of plain old meat n’ taters, but he was a champ and ate three onigiri. He preferred the turkey filling and I loved the tuna.

Day 229: Green Slime

No adventurous cook is without err. I’m no perfect chef and this failed experiment is a good example.

When I mess up a recipe and I know it is beyond saving I tend to revert to being a small child wreaking havok in the kitchen.

The goal was to make boba tea. I couldn’t find the huge tapioca pearls so I did the best I could with these medium sized pearls.

I didn’t add enough water and the pearls almost instantly starting turning the water to pudding.
I figured I would just make it into some weird pudding.

I added lemon extract, sugar, and yellow & blue food coloring. As you can see, this did not make it any more edible.

When I tried to make real tapioca pudding I kinda failed too. I tried to make a coconut tapioca pudding–yes, I followed a recipe this time.
Only issue was that my pearls were undercooked. I didn’t think about soaking them or boiling them longer.

Will I ever get my desired result?