Homemade Sushi



Ever since we started working on the Kids Culinary Passport together, I knew when we did get to Japan I definitely wanted to try my hand at making sushi with Lily. So this morning, we all went over to the Japanese Market, Mitsuwa in Irvine to pick up everything we would need.  A friend of mine has invited us over in the past and made handrolls for us and I always wanted to make them at home and today we did.  I was a little timid about making sushi.  I thought it would be really hard.  It's actually not hard at all, there is just a lot of preparation that goes into it. I used the Japanese Home Cooking Cookbook by Shunsake Fukushima to get the basic idea of how to make sushi and then my husband and my daughter Lily just used our imagination to think of what we could put as the filling.

Lily placed the bamboo placemat on the butcher block cutting board. She then placed a nori sheet on to it--rough side facing up.

We made special sushi rice by making a special sushi vinegar.  We placed 1/2 cup of rice vinegar and 1 tsp. of salt into a small saucepan over low heat and stirred it until the salt dissolved. Then we added 1 tbs. of sugar and 1 tsp. of mirin and continued to stir briskly until the sugar was dissolved.  It is important not to let the mixture boil and to remove the saucepan from the heat when it is too hot to touch.  Then after we put the hot rice in a bowl we added the sushi vinegar slowly to the rice and distributed it evenly with a rice paddle. We let it sit and cool to room temperature before we preceded to the next step.

My husband spread the rice over the nori sheet , being careful not to rip it, until the sheet was 3/4 covered with a thin layer of rice.

Lily and her Daddy wet their hands while putting the rice onto the nori, so it wouldn't stick to their hands but to the seaweed instead.

Next we added our fillings. This roll had tuna, salmon, avocado, cucumber, and carrots.

Tim gripped the sushi as he rolled it and squeezed it gently to form a tight tube. He tucked the mat gently but firmly around the roll until it was complete and secure.

Then he cut the sushi into pieces with a sharp knife.

Beautiful Sushi

My kids enjoyed their wannabe onigiri rolls with edamame.

After our delicious Japanese meal, Lily finally got to add the Japan "stamp" to her passport!