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Get Started with Sushi

Hampden Park Co-op has everything you need to start making your own Sushi at home. Not only is sushi a delicious, low-calorie way to eat (the following recipe for California rolls is only 300 calories for all 8 pieces), it's also a lot of fun to make. Think of it as an art project that you get to eat when you've finished it.

Although many people are familiar with sushi, it can be a bit intimidating to make on your own. I used to think that you need to be an apprenticed chef in order to cut the raw fish correctly and safely for use in sushi. This brings up common misconception: sushi, is not raw fish, but rather the name given to the seasoned, sticky rice that is served with raw fish. There are many vegetarian sushi dishes, made with fresh vegetables and sesame seeds. It's an easy mistake to make because "sashimi," the Japanese word for sliced, raw fish, sounds similar to "sushi." Sushi has also come to mean a whole style of cooking with sticky rice from "nigiri," hand formed egg-shaped clumps of rice with a slice of raw fish on top, to elaborate and beautiful rolls. With a little patience anyone can learn to make some of the simpler sushi recipes. Even the more exotic dishes aren't out of reach for the amateur, but for starters, it's best to begin with something simple like a California roll.

It usually takes me two hours to make sushi. An hour to cook the rice and cut the fish and vegetables and an hour to put these ingredients together into sushi. There is no way to speed up this labor intensive process, although I understand that there are fast food restaurants in Japan that employ a special robot device to make nigiri! The labor and skill involved account for the fact most sushi is quite pricey--all the more reason to try making sushi at home. After your first sushi dinner, you will have an even greater appreciation for the skill and artistry of a good sushi chef. Here's a list of what you'll need as a first-time sushi chef.

Rice: HPC stocks several kinds of rice that are suitable for sushi, including organic sushi rice, a short grained variety, raised specially for it's admirable properties and appeal to sushi chefs. In general, use only short or medium grained rice since long-grained rice won't hold together well enough for sushi.

• Rice vinegar and soy sauce
• Sushi nori: seaweed that's pressed into paper-thin sheets, toasted and precut into wraps for sushi. It's important to make sure that it's always stored in an airtight container, since it will absorb moisture from the air and be ruined for sushi-making.
• Makisu: a small bamboo mat that helps you to form tight sushi rolls. HPC sells these in their excellent Asian foods section.
• Oke or hangiri: a large flat-bottom bowl for cooling the rice. The traditional material is wood but a large glass mixing bowl will do in a pinch
• Wasabi: HPC sells this powerful horseradish in paste and powdered form. I prefer the powdered because the paste often has food coloring added.
• Imitation crab meat: the precooked kind that HPC sells in the freezer case is perfect because the shape is similar to a sushi roll. You will also need a small cucumber and a ripe but firm avacado.
• A sharp knife: a sharpened standard cooks 6 or 8 inch knife will do. I prefer the smaller size as it doesn't squash the rolls as much.
• Toasted sesame seeds: usually sold at specialty markets raw. You can toast these by putting them in a dry cast-rion pan on low heat. When the seeds begin to pop, they're done.
• Pickled ginger: HPC sells this delicious accompaniment to sushi. It is used to cleanse the palate between courses.

Prepare a salt-water solution called tezu. Mix together 1 cup of water, 1 tsp of salt and set-aside. Tezu might seem trvial, but it is used in every step of sushi making.

Ingredients for sushi rice to make approximately 5 rolls

Wash the rice until the water is clear. It is important to remove all the talc from the rice as it will make the sushi gluey. Move to a colander and drain. This is good time to start preparing fillings for the sushi. Peel the cucumber and avacado. Cutting from the outside of the cucumber, make long, narrow, 1/4 inch-wide strips. Stop cutting when you get to the seeds as those won't be used in the sushi. Avoiding the pit, make 1/4 inch strips from the avacado. Set the avacado aside in a bowl and sprinkle some lemon juice over the top to keep it looking nice and green. Thaw the crab meet in cool water and slice it into 1/4 inch-wide strips.

By now the rice should be drained, so transfer it to a heavy, large saucepan and add the measured water. Bring to a boil on medium heat with a tight lid. Turn down the heat to a very low setting and simmer for 15 minutes more with the cover on at all times. Now remove from the heat, remove the lid momentarily to stretch a clean tea towel over the pot and replace the cover. Let it remain covered without heat to finish steaming for another 15 minutes. Meanwhile, mix the rice vinegar, sugar and salt together in a small saucepan. While stirring, gently heat the mixture until the sugar dissolves. Set the mixture aside to cool to room temperature. After the rice has steamed properly, take a wooden spatula or spoon and cut and fold the rice. Do not use beating or stirring motions as you want to avoid smashing the grains.

Dip a paper towel in the tezu and rub the insides of the rice bowl. Put the hot rice into the bowl and quickly add the seasoned rice vinegar solution, mixing with the same cutting and folding motion. Fan the rice for a few minutes until it is cool enough to pick up with your hands. The rice is not to be refrigerated and should be used within an hour after preparation. Keep the rice covered with a clean cloth and at room temperature until you are ready to make your rolls.

Lay a sheet of nori out on a clean, dry cutting board. Wet your hands in the tezu mixture and clap them together to get just the right amount of moisture on your hands. Repeat this step whenever your hands get too sticky. Pick up a softball-sized ball of rice and set it down in the middle of the nori. Gently press and push the rice around the nori until you have covered it completely with a thin mat of rice. Place a piece of plastic wrap over the rice and gently flip the nori/rice mat over so that the plastic wrap is against the cutting board. Arrange the strips of crab and vegetables to form a narrow stripe down the middle of the mat. Gently roll up the mat and the filling, but not the plastic. Roll from the bottom edge, with a tuck and roll motion that gently pinches the roll together to make it as tight as possible. When the roll is complete, put the plastic around the outside of the roll. Place your makisu on top of roll and use it to tighten and form the sushi roll. Some of the ingredients will want to escape out the sides, so make sure you don't tighten the roll so much that you can't scoot them back in.

Carefully remove the makisu and plastic wrap. Use a sharp knife to slice the roll into eight pieces about 3/4 of an inch thick. You might need to wipe the knife clean with tezu and a towel, between slices. Wet your fingers with tezu and transfer the rolls onto a plate. Repeat the process until you've used up all the rice. A simple variation is to place the nori on the outside and the rice on the inside (no plastic wrap needed). This will add some color to your sushi plate. You can make smaller sushi rolls by cutting the nori in half and adjusting all the ingredients by half. You might not be able to complete five rolls within an hour, on your first attempt at sushi. A good way to use-up leftover rice is to toss in a table spoon of sesame oil, a handful of toasted sesame seeds, some shredded cabbage, smoked fish and chopped cucumber. Place this mixture in a piece of nori and make a sushi burrito. Wrap the burritos in plastic and refrigerate for a fun lunch the next day.

Serving and eating sushi: the best part comes last!

Sushi should be enjoyed with chopsticks. With smaller pieces of sushi it is acceptable to pop them in your mouth with one bite. For the larger pieces, it is appropriate to bite them in half. When you make sushi at home you can practice your chopstick etiquette, so you'll be an old pro the next time you dine out. Remember it is considered rude to stab with your chopsticks or to leave them standing in a bowl of rice (the latter is a Japanese funeral custom). Making walrus teeth is a no-no and so is sharpening your chopsticks by rubbing them together. And no drum solos either. If you are passing food with chopsticks, make sure to use the end that you're not eating with and when you dip nigiri in sauce, put the fish side into the sauce, not the rice.

Good luck and enjoy. For more information: an excellent tutorial is available at www.stickyrice.com. The rice recipe in this article was adapted from their website with permission. There are many books on the subject, including The Book of Sushi by Hinjiro Omae, Kinjiro Omae, Yuzuru Tachibana from Kodansha International Press and "Fun & Fancy Sushi," by Seiko Ogawa, Ine Mizuno, Kazuhiko Nagai which is recommended for its vegetarian recipes and simple instructions.