Japanese Cuisine- Nori Roll

Making sushi roll is one of the hardest food that I have made from this book. Many aspects of this food are challenging. From cutting all the ingredients to rolling the sushi together. Using Cucumbers are the easiest ingredient for sushi rolls (Dekura 93). Instead of using only cucumbers, I chose to challenge myself by using more ingredients. Since I have had a decent amount of culminating experience, I decided to improve my skills by giving myself a challenge. I took a recipe from my mom, which includes Cucumbers, Yellow radish, Crabmeat, Spam, fish sticks, rice, seaweed, and salad dressing. The main challenge of this recipe was cutting everything, but rolling it up was not as hard.

To start this Recipe I cut the Spam, Crabmeat, Yellow Radish, fish stick, and Cucumber into long strands. From my amount of experience, I could cut these ingredients without a struggle. However, from the amount I made, it took a long time. I cooked the rice while I was cutting the ingredients in order to save time. After the rice finished cooking, I “combined rice vinegar, sugar, salt” (Dekura 146). When I finished mixing the ingredients, I left the rice cooker open in order to cool off the rice.

When all the ingredients were finished, I took out my sushi mat (a bamboo mat) and laid it on the counter. According to Dekura, you should, “spread a handful of rice thinly over the nori without squashing it” (93). I used a water-vinegar solution to soak my hands, in order to avoid rice sticking on my hands. After getting all the ingredients onto the nori, I lifted the edge of the sushi mat and rolled up the sushi while pushing all the ingredients towards me (Dekura 93). Finally, when all the sushi is rolled up, I cut each piece by, “[cutting] it into halves, then fourths, then eighths” (Dekura 93).  

I'm extremely proud of my product, and I felt very accomplished after I finished doing everything. What foods have you been proud of making?

Dekura, Hideo, and Danny Kildare. Contemporary Japanese Cuisine: Classic Recipes, Fresh Flavors. New York: Weatherhill, 2001. Print.

Japanese cuisine - Sushi

          Before I started making sushi for this project, I assumed that cutting up a piece of fish and placing it on a ball of rice would be simple. But as I finally got hands on experience with creating sushi, I was wrong. Many knife techniques are contributed into the making of sushi. The technique I chose to use was Sogi-Zukuri which is "a technique for thin sushi tops" (Dekura 149). Whereas the Hiki-Zukuri technique is used for thicker pieces of fish. In order to perform the Sogi-Zukuri technique you must slice the fillet at a 45-degree angle and slice approximately 1 cm (Dekura 149). My first couple slices didn't work quite as planned. The angle was slightly off causing my fish to be chunky and unappealing.

         After a couple more tries I finally acquired the skill of Sogi- Zukuri. I wouldn't consider my skill to be perfection because, I can consistently make good cuts, but I still mess up at times. Cutting the fish wasn't the only thing that was challenging. Creating the rice was also challenging. The correct way of creating a ball of rice is by "Combine water and vinegar in a bowl. Wash your hands well, dip your fingers into the bowl of vinegared water, then clap your hands together to remove any excess water" (Dekura 92). On my first attempt my hands were too wet, disallowing the rice to form into a ball and causes it collapse. On my second attempt i used less water on my hands but that made the rice stick to my hands. On my third try it seemed better but i still cant get the right amount of water on my hands to where the rice will form without sticking.

         Assembling the sushi was probably the easiest part of this process. I held the fish on my left hand and slightly cupped my hand. Then, I grasped the ball of rice with my right hand and rested it above the piece of fish. Using slight pressure I folded my fingers causing the fish and rice to stick (Dekura 92). All in all my experience with making sushi taught me a lot about cooking. I learned new knife techniques which can be used in other foods that I make in the future. 

How have you used a knife in your cooking?

Dekura, Hideo, and Danny Kildare. Contemporary Japanese Cuisine: Classic Recipes, Fresh Flavors. New York: Weatherhill, 2001. Print.