Anyone ever prepped your own sushi?

[Ben E Lou]

My brother and his wife bought a sushi set for SWMBO and me for Christmas. It has the wooden thingy to make rolls, nice chopsticks, and the serving stuff. We're thinking that it might be a fun thing to do together tomorrow night. She's going to do some research on the 'net later tonight, but I thought I'd ask around here, too. We generally like sashimi, rolls, and nigeri (sp?) usually. Any prep tips? Where do you buy sushi-grade fish? If we wanted to do, say, cucumber rolls, do we chop them up ourselves, or are there places where we might be able to purchase that sort of thing ready-to-roll?

[digamma]

My in-laws gave us a set three Christmases ago. Three years later, we have yet to make our own sushi.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by digamma

My in-laws gave us a set three Christmases ago. Three years later, we have yet to make our own sushi.

same here (for practical purposes)

[Airhog]

The problem with doing fresh sushi, is that it takes a trained eye to know if fish is fresh enough to use. Do you have an asian market in atlanta? That would be a good place I would imagine.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Airhog

The problem with doing fresh sushi, is that it takes a trained eye to know if fish is fresh enough to use. Do you have an asian market in atlanta? That would be a good place I would imagine.

I'd imagine there are one or two in Doraville on Buford Highway, which is less than 10 minutes from us.

[Airhog]

I did a quick google, and you can use any fresh fish, or properly thawed commercially frozen fish.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Never been that brave personally, but these might help a little on the preparation part.
No idea where to find the fish though, my first thought was that upscale Harris Teeter that was around Buckhead but I guess that is a Kroger now or something (IIRC, HT sold off their Atlanta stores). Next best idea I've got would be to try asking at one of the Japanese markets in-town, but no idea how that conversation is going to go (I'm guessing that English is at a premium in the best ethnic food markets)

http://www.rain.org/~hutch/sushi.html
http://web.mit.edu/epicurean/www/rec...rean-sushi.pdf
http://www.sushi-guide.co.uk/
http://www.eatsushi.com/demos.asp

[st.cronin]

My girlfriend has. It turned out tasty, but very very sloppy. It really is an art.

[CraigSca]

It is rather difficult, but pays great dividends. Usually the supermarkets do not sell sushi-grade fish, but you can call around the local seafood retailers to see if they sell the right fish.

FWIW, before I knew what sushi-grade was, I used to buy a chunk of tuna or salmon at the local market, cut it up myself, ate it and felt fine. So...you can roll the dice like I did and see how it comes out.

As far as cucumber - you're on your own - I've never heard of someone buying sushi-cut cucumber. Surely you can do that yourself, right?

By the way - it pays to buy sushi rice. It has a smaller grain and is sweeter than normal rice. You will be able to taste the difference.

Have fun!

[Daimyo]

You can make sushi rolls from anything... don't need to use raw fish. The most poplar in America seems to be California rolls which is just imitation crab meat, cucumber, and avocado. I like spicy tuna rolls and found I cheaply duplicate them by mixing canned tuna with thai spicy sauce and mayonaise. If you have a Chinese grocery store nearby you could pick up some eel and grill it and then make rolls from that.

I don't trust fish in the US enough to try anything more that that, but I imagine it would be alright if you knew a place that was guaranteed to be super fresh.

[Daimyo]

DOLA, far more important than what you put inside is the rice. If you get the rice right just about any ingredients will work... you can be creative.

[Groundhog]

You know, I've always wanted to try this... let us know how you go SkyDog.

[Dutch]

Just remember Rule #2.

If you screw up, turn your BBQ on.

[Mustang]

I make Maki every few weeks. Most of the time I just use store bought from the case and have never had an issue. Our local store has sushi grade fish and I trust them so, I'd find a place you trust rather than running down to the local chain. Or, if you want.. just use a canned crab meat. (I hate artificial seafood in the rolls)

for rice, use a shorter grain rice (you can find sushi rice at alot of places. Stickiness is a good thing. For the love of god don't use minute rice. Actually, I think if you use minute rice, Ninjas descend from the sky and kick your ass). Also, there are a fair amount of recipes online to find the recipe for the 'dressing' consisting of rice vinegar, sugar, salt & sake. Best thing is make your rice, add the dressing and spread out the rice some so it cools quicker. Keeping it lumped together it takes longer to cool off.

If you are making Maki (the rolls) just cut the fish in strips. I don't know how to really cut for presentation so... Also, I don't think I've ever seen pre-cut items for rolls so.. I'd just cut your own. For say, cucumber, just cut in strips, de-seed and then cut long ways to make the slivers.

Couple things when rolling. Leave about a 1/4-1/2 inch space on the top of the Nori otherwise you won't get a good seal. Coat a decent layer of rice on the nori (shiny side down) but, don't use too much. I usually ladle on the rice with a rice paddle and fill up the sheet that way. If you need to spread it out with your fingers, just get your finger tips a little damp (not dripping wet) and flatten it out how. Put your items in the middle and roll with the mat... to seal the nori, I usually get my fingers ever so damp in a little bowl of water, run it over the seem and then circle the entire roll with the mat and press around the mat.

To cut, take it out of the mat, lay on your surface and get your knife damp, cut, wipe the blade, damp and cut again. If you don't keep the blade clean the stickiness of the rice won't allow for a good cut plus, the damp knife helps. (Basically I wipe with a damp rag.. you just don't want dripping water).

Oh and prepare everything before hand or while the rice is cooking. When you starting rolling, you just want to be able to grab items and add.

And for Wasabi.. try to find the powder and make your own instead of the premade goo.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Daimyo

You can make sushi rolls from anything... don't need to use raw fish. The most poplar in America seems to be California rolls which is just imitation crab meat, cucumber, and avocado. I like spicy tuna rolls and found I cheaply duplicate them by mixing canned tuna with thai spicy sauce and mayonaise. If you have a Chinese grocery store nearby you could pick up some eel and grill it and then make rolls from that.

I don't trust fish in the US enough to try anything more that that, but I imagine it would be alright if you knew a place that was guaranteed to be super fresh.

My wife and I have gone the California roll route on many occasions. It takes a lot of time (over an hour, including letting the rice sit to soak) but it's really tasty. We're chickens, tho- we won't do anything beyond the imitation crab route.

SI

[Vegas Vic]

I always pictured Ben as a meat and potatoes kind of guy.

[oykib]

I have. One of the guys who works at my company used to be a sushi chef in California. He showed me how.

If you are making nigiri, keep a bowl of water nearby to cool off your hands. If your hands are too warm, then the rice will stick to them.

'Course it's been a few years since I made any. You also might want to try making nabe. But that's more of a party activity. And it's usually better in cold weather.

[Mustang]

I have to laugh at the raw fish - chicken to experiment. In this day and age, I understand the concerns with food but, one of the things I love that I will have occassionally is raw meat sandwiches. (Or, as they are affectionately know - Cannibal sandwiches). raw ground round on rye bread w/raw onions and salt and pepper. 35 years of eating once or twice a year and I haven't dropped dead yet so.. oh well. Pretty common item to have up here in Wisconsin...

But, sorry.. tangent..

[ThunderingHERD]

I'm currently working as an assistant manager at a drug store. One of the gift items we got in for christmas was a sushi set. I just had to wonder, even disregarding the fact that we're in red neck central, NC, how many people eat sushi at home???!? Apparently not many--last I checked we've only sold 2, even after out 50% markdown post-christmas.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by ThunderingHERD

how many people eat sushi at home???!?

We do a decent bit, actually. There's a pretty solid hibachi/sushi restaurant in Tucker that delivers, believe it or not. I'd imagine we order from there once a month or so, usually on Fridays (not during the fall, of course). As busy as restaurants are in metro Atlanta on a Friday evening, it is very, very nice at the end of a long work week to be able to have a nice meal together with a glass of wine without dealing with valet parking and hour-and-a-half waits. Prepping our own sounds more like a longer project for a Saturday or Sunday night when we're not tired, but we were just curious if it would save us money and be a somewhat-fun thing to do together.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Vegas Vic

I always pictured Ben as a meat and potatoes kind of guy.

Ultimately, yeah, but one of my redneck buddies and me were talking one afternoon when we were n college, and we dared each other to try some of that "bait" they served in the Japanese restaurant. It turned out we both really liked it. We started out with just smoked salmon, crab stick, and shrimp tempura, with tuna being our only uncooked item on the menu (and since we'd both had tuna steaks rare, that wasn't much of a stretch really). We "graduated" to a much bigger selection as time went on.

[Karlifornia]

Making sushi at home sounds really brave. I mean, having southern people over for dinner and not only telling them that they're eating sushi, but that it's homemade sushi? Wow. That sounds too hippie even for this bay area resident

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by RadioFriendlyUnitShifter

Making sushi at home sounds really brave. I mean, having southern people over for dinner and not only telling them that they're eating sushi, but that it's homemade sushi? Wow. That sounds too hippie even for this bay area resident

Who said anything about having people over for dinner? This is just something for the two of us to do.

[Karlifornia]

Making sushi at home sounds really brave. I mean, southern people not only eating sushi, but homemade sushi? Wow. That sounds too hippie even for this bay area resident


Okay, how about that?

EDIT: Oh, and by the way, it was in jest. Ha Ha. I wasn't actually calling anyone a dirty hippie. I make my own sushi all the time. In fact, they call me the Bob Vila of sushi.

[Desnudo]

Sushi seems like one of those foods that tastes better when someone else makes it (presentation).

[Ben E Lou]

Alright boyz. We're back from the Farmers' Market, and have cooked the rice. Sushi comin' up!

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Alright boyz. We're back from the Farmers' Market, and have cooked the rice. Sushi comin' up!

Woot

[Ben E Lou]

[JonInMiddleGA]

Okay, a couple of things here:

-- in the second picture, the printout of the FOFC thread is just priceless. I've taken stuff like that shopping with me (computers, video games, etc.) but it's funny to see it in a photo somehow
-- in the first photo, I'm setting an over/under of 20 minutes for someone to obscenely question one of the objects pictured. (If there was another avocado sitting where the cream cheese is, I'd have said 12 minutes ... even less if we weren't running short-handed due to the holiday)

[Airhog]

Ive seen skydog in his patrotic undies. SWMBO doesnt need an avacado, or a cucumber

[st.cronin]

Airhog, that reminds me of this guy I knew in the service, who whenever anybody new arrived, would walk around the locker room with his junk sticking out of his undies. When the new person invariably caught this sight, he'd shout out: "What the hell are you looking at, faggot??"

[terpkristin]

SkyDog,
I've been lurking in this thread, but I would hope that you give us all a "lessons learned" after tonight's adventure is done! I'm allergic to seafood (yes, all types, it's iodine for shellfish and something else for other fish) but I love the vegetable rolls. I'm itching to make some cucumber and avacado rolls for myself at some point in the nearish future. So, please, include tips (and that goes for anyone else who's made it before--and yes, I already have sushi rice).



TIA!
/tk

[Galaxy]

Skydog should enter the Iron Chef.

[Ben E Lou]

More pics coming soon, but quick question, if anyone who knows is reading:

How does one CLEAN a wooden sushi mat after dinner???

[JonInMiddleGA]

If you're talking about the plate, I found one listing that said "Clean with damp cloth making sure piece is thoroughly dried afterwards."
http://store.gxonlinestore.org/sushiplateset.html

Dunno if that's right but that's what it says.

[Pumpy Tudors]

I can't help with any sushi questions since I don't eat the stuff, but I've been seeing this thread since yesterday without any incident. I didn't even open the thread because I don't know anything about sushi. For some reason, though, I just saw the thread again, and it looked like it read "Anyone ever pooped your own sushi?" I need serious help.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Pumpy Tudors

I can't help with any sushi questions since I don't eat the stuff, but I've been seeing this thread since yesterday without any incident. I didn't even open the thread because I don't know anything about sushi. For some reason, though, I just saw the thread again, and it looked like it read "Anyone ever pooped your own sushi?" I need serious help.

nope that was an airhog parody thread. i saw it too. dunno if it's still floating down there or if he deleted it (PEOPLE MIGHT LOSE POSTS!!!)

[Ben E Lou]

OK...here we go....




The meat (cut up by me) and sesame seeds (toasted by SWMBO)....





The veggies, being cut up by SWMBO, along with the rice (prepped by me)...






The nigiri, prepped by me (yeah, too big, and too much extra rice hanging around):











The leftover meat after I made the nigiri and SWMBO made the rolls. (We threw this in the oven with soy sauce and ginger, and I'll be eating it tomorrow...)







California Roll (prepped by SWMBO...yeah, her stuff looked a lot better than mine, surprise, surprise):








The dinner table almost set after all the work was complete:



Lessons learned will come later.

[DaddyTorgo]

is it too late to come to dinner?

YUM YUM

and the nigiri doesn't look TOO big. just looks like you have a big mouth

[terpkristin]

Nice layout, SD. Can't wait for the "final thoughts" on it all.

You've given me the courage to try it on my own!

/tk

[Ben E Lou]

Gotta run...but a few thoughts from both of us (she's at the computer with me):

1. It wasn't NEARLY as hard as we thought it would be. We'll almost definitely do it again.
2. JIMGA's post of http://www.sushi-guide.co.uk and Mustang's post were very, very helpful.
3. We can tell that practice will make perfect.
4. I used too much rice in my nigeri.
5. SWMBO's rolls were *very* close to the real deal. (The California Roll was pretty much perfect. The cucumber roll had a bit too much rice.)
6. It tasted great.
7. Home-prepared wasabi has significantly more kick than that which we get in restaurants.
8. My wife is wonderful for doing this with me, and she gets extra cool points because now we're signing off, and she's learning to play Civ4.


--Ben

[JonInMiddleGA]

-- Props to the SD household for giving this a whirl.
-- A lot of the stuff I skimmed through while searching around for info gave me the impression that nigiri is much tougher to do than rolls (although I would have guessed the opposite), so I wouldn't sweat any cosmetic errors at this point
-- If I ever get so brave (not likely), I'd have to add ginger simmered beef to the menu (your mention about popping the leftovers in the oven made me think of that, a personal favorite of mine from Rusans).

Good job, and thanks for sharing something that turned out pretty interesting.

[QuikSand]

Very impressive effort, I'll agree. Glad you enjoyed. Maybe we can gain inspiration as well.

[GrantDawg]

Great stuff, Ben. Invite the wife and I over next time.

[Dutch]

When the Mr and Mrs Dutch (plus 2 boys) lived in Turkey we were a stones throw away from a great Japanese restaraunt. By our standards, it was cheap to eat there (roughly 70 bucks for the 4 of us) and the first time we went, they gave us a sushi sampler. Brought out the chef for the suchi bar and prepared a fantastic plate with most every kind of sushi available.

As a side story, included with the sushi was the wasabi (as pictured above). I scooped about half of that onto a knife and dropped it into my mouth. I thought my head was going to explode. I wanted to cry and scream at the same time. Had no idea what it was...but thankfully, within about 15 seconds the pain was gone and I learned the key to wasabi-->moderation.

But anyway, before that, my only experience with Suchi was airplane food and buffet sushi. That restaraunt sushi changed my whole perception of sushi. And these pictures remind me of the things I had in that nice Japanese restaraunt.

So in a nutshell, the food in those pics look great!

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

-- A lot of the stuff I skimmed through while searching around for info gave me the impression that nigiri is much tougher to do than rolls

Yeah. Later on last night, as I was praising SWMBO for her rolls, she said the same thing--that her job doing the rolls seemed much easier than mine...

[Ben E Lou]

One thing: rather than "imitiation crab meat," we decided to go with the real deal and bought a big honkin' King Crab leg. Using that meat made a difference that we could notice. The California roll and "crab stick" were both significantly tastier than what we'd previously eaten at sushi restaurants--more expensive, to be sure, but darned well worth it.

--Ben

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Great stuff, Ben. Invite the wife and I over next time.

I'm definitely going to have to work on the "presentation" of the nigiri before SWMBO lets me serve it to anyone. Now, if she's out of town on the weekend of a big football game again, though....

[Ben E Lou]

Oh (and sorry for the quadruple dola...)

To recap, the original goal for the evening was a fun and interactive "date night," with great-tasting sushi optional. At the grocery store, we pledged to each other that if we got into it and realized that we were over our heads, we'd punt, and cook the tuna and salmon in the oven with soy and ginger, and combine the veggies in a salad. The fact that we were more than pleased with the results of the date night was a very nice bonus.

[sterlingice]

Well- exactly. You hit the nail right on the head about what's fun about this. It's a laid back date night and you get sushi for cheaper than you would at most places.

Speaking of which, I hate that there's nowhere in the area that I can get good sushi. Then again, look where I'm at: the most landlocked location on the continent. I really miss the Kirin up at Willowbrook Mall in Houston. I've been to Todai's in both Houston and San Diego and liked them both, too. All you can eat sushi is great, but expensive so lunch is pretty much the only option and even then, you're looking at $15-$20 just for the meal, not including drink, taxes, and tip.

SI