Salmon Sushi

Going out for sushi is a lot of fun and really tasty, but it is fun to make at home too. And surprisingly, not that hard. I started by making 2 cups of sushi rice. When it is cooked, add a tablespoon or so of rice vinegar and mix softly with a spatula in a bowl to avoid breaking the grains while the rice cools to room temperature. Get someone else to do this part while you prepare the other stuff.

I picked up some fish at a nearby fish market earlier that day. I like to tell the person working there that I'm making sushi and ask what is freshest. I skinned the fish and cut it into strips. Saute mushrooms in beer and soy sauce with a little bit of garlic until all the liquid is gone. Slice red pepper, avocado and cucumber into strips. After the mushrooms were cooked, I fried the skin to make it super crispy and cut that into strips too.

When the rice is cooled, take your seaweed and cover it with rice, leaving about one inch at the end clean for sealing. It is a good idea to have a small bowl of water to dip your fingers in. The rice is quite sticky otherwise. That was a huge understatement, it is EXTREMELY STICKY. Put all the sushi ingredients at one end of the sheet and roll it up. This sounds easier than it is too, but with practice, you'll get it. Just try to make the roll as tight as possibly or it will fall apart when you cut it later. Really squeeze it to get the rice to stick tightly around the other stuff without breaking the nori (sushi seaweed) or squeezing out your filling ingredients.

Blurry and poorly framed areal view of daintily arranged sushi. Sexy, ain't it?

When you get to the end of the roll, dampen the exposed nori and seal it up, making sure the roll stays tight. That's it. You have sushi. You can eat it as is like a hot dog, or souvlaki, or you can slice it up and make it look pretty. Eat as much as you can, then groan a lot, continuously saying how good it was and how no matter how small the pieces, not one more can possibly fit inside you. This will please the cook and seems to be some weird sushi tradition.

I serve mine with wasabi and a little bowl of tamari sauce, which is pretty much soy sauce, but is not meant to be cooked with and has a much more delicate flavour. Mixing them together to create an unholy union of spicy and salty umami is delightful, but some say it is uncouth. To those people I say, eat your sushi until one more tiny piece can't possibly fit inside you!