Sort of Sushi

First of all, get it out of your head that I'm going to tell you how to make the sort of sushi you're familiar with. Not restaurant sushi. Not grocery-store sushi. Not even convenience store sushi (and I'm not judging you for being familiar with that; we've all made questionable choices in convenience stores and we're stronger people because of it). No, this is what happens when I make an attempt at a particular dish over and over again, until it gets into an idiosyncratic but highly satisfying final form, one that's adaptable to myriad what-I've-got-in-the-fridge situations and one which offers the possibility of further adaptations yet undreamt of.

Second, your two objections, addressed:

1. But isn't sushi raw?! Are you trying to give me salmonella?Even I wouldn't eat raw fish I'd prepared myself, and I have an iron stomach and a taste for adventure. Nope. Nothing raw in this except the vegetables.
2. Sushi is, like, the definition of expensive food! I thought you were into affordable stuff!
   This is one of those dishes that can be priced up or down depending on what you want to put in it - kind of like a sandwich. At the heart of it, my Sort of Sushi is grain+vegetables with a bit of fish in for flavor, and that's a recipe for affordability. 

All right. Are we good? Onward!

Ingredients:

For the Rice

• 2 cups rice (You can use sushi rice, of course, which isn't hard to find though it can be expensive. You can also use short-grain rice, and I've tried it once with arborio rice with a high degree of success. This time around I used quinoa, which worked just fine. Whatever grain you go with, don't buy it in those little pre-packaged bags. Go round to the bulk food aisle.)
• 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar (If your regular store only sells one kind of this, it's probably overpriced. In fact, it's worth hitting up an Asian market in your area to stock up on staples you're going to be using)
• 1 tbps sugar
• 1 tsp salt

My fillings

For the Filling (pick 3-5)

• Avocado
• Cucumber
• Carrot
• Smoked salmon
• Canned Salmon
• Nice Canned Tuna (by which I mean, step it up a grade from the tuna-salad stuff. It's worth the extra expense and doesn't taste like grade school.)
• Barbecued eel (if you're prepared to splurge)
• Imitation Crab Sticks (if California rolls are your jam)
• Fried fish from the grocery store steam table (WHAT. It is delicious.)
• Fried egg (further details on the frying to follow)
• Cream Cheese
• Further Items as Inspiration Strikes or the Fridge Warrants.

For the Rolls

• Sheets of nori seaweed (look, you're going to have to go to an Asian market for this. They might have them in your fancy hippy store like Whole Foods but I will bet you dessert they're overpriced. Go ahead, get a big pack of them. You'll be making this a lot. And if for some unfathomable reason you don't, then you can just snack on them out of the bag)
• Sesame seeds

For the Garnish

• Wasabi (powder or paste, whichever you can find first/cheapest)
• Soy sauce
• Pickled ginger (you can totally pickle this yourself, by the way; it's a disgracefully easy refrigerator pickle, but I'll save that for another post, ideally after I've gotten a mandoline or better knife skills)

Rice Cookers: Get One

If you're using rice, soak it for half an hour. You want it to get all mushy and sticky when you make your rolls, the better to hold together. The quinoa you can just stick in the rice cooker. (Get a rice cooker. They're one of those kitchen appliances that you can get brand new at yard sales and thrift stores because people like to give them as gifts. If you are like me and find new ways to ruin rice every time you cook it, a rice cooker is absolutely worth $5 and/or getting married and putting one on your registry.) Cooking should take about 20 minutes, rice cooker or no rice cooker. In the meantime....

Start cutting up your vegetables. Cut 'em into matchsticks. Nice and skinny. You're going to be rolling these up; make 'em too chunky and they will fall right out or be hard to bite through. Practice your knife skills. Have some fun.

Prepare your protein. If you're using a canned fish, I like to mix it with a little mayonnaise (not as much as you would add for a tuna salad, just enough to get the fish to hold together when you stir it up) and then add a dash of teriyaki sauce, sesame oil, and/or hot sauce. Do this to taste; you're going to be eating it.

If you want to prepare an egg or two tamago-style, here's a tutorial. Definitely worth it if you're going for presentation and authenticity! I, on the other hand, am lazy and almost always out of mirin, so I just put a dash of rice wine vinegar in when I'm beating up the egg, put a drop of sesame oil in the pan, fry the egg gently on low heat, cut it in strips, and call it a day.

Why use white sugar
when you can use raw or brown sugar?

Hey, the rice should be done now! Check and see if it's nice and sticky. If it is, take if off the heat, and mix together the vinegar, salt, and sugar. Add the mixture to the rice and mix it in thoroughly. Let it cool. (This is another delay in the process. If it's winter, I like to stick it outside.) Go chop up some more things, and get out your rolling equipment!

You don't actually need a sushi-rolling mat to make sushi rolls. You just need something firm but flexible enough to roll up. I had perfectly fine results with plastic placemats for years. But the sushi-rolling mat is fun. Get someone to give you one of those kits for a birthday present, and you're set. Or add it to your registry, since you're already getting married for a rice cooker.

Ready to roll

Get a square of nori and set it down on your mat, shiny side down. Get yourself the sharpest knife you've got, and a little bowl of lukewarm water. Get your rice, and spread it over the seaweed, leaving about an inch near the top uncovered at the top. Don't try to spread it like butter; you may tear the seaweed. Squish it down with your fingers or the back of a spoon. Is it sticking to your fingers? That's why I told you to get the water. Rinse your fingers off but don't dry them. A bit of water will help as you squash down the rice in a nice even layer, maybe 1/4 inch deep, over the seaweed.

The quinoa wasn't as sticky as I'd like, and got all over the place.

Add your fillings! This is the fun part. Lay your fillings in a horizontal line across the rice about 1/3 of the way up. Mess around and see what combinations you like! Smoked salmon and cucumber is classic. So is eel and avocado. But I find it's hard to make something that really doesn't work. If you're using something that's wetter than other ingredients, like your canned tuna or salmon mixture, be sure not to put too much of it on there. And one creamy ingredient, like avocado or cream cheese, is usually enough. Don't fill it too full. You're going to be rolling all this up.

Cucumber, cream cheese, salmon

Cucumber, tuna, carrot

Carrot, eel, avocado

Starting at the bottom of your mat, roll up the seaweed and rice around the fillings. Dip a finger in the water, and run it across the strip of seaweed you left bare at the beginning. When your roll gets up to the top, press the dampened strip across the roll, just like sealing an envelope. Wrap your mat around the roll and squeeze the whole thing together. If ingredients pop out at this stage, you either made your roll too loose or you're squeezing too hard.

Run your sharp knife under water briefly, then slice your sushi-log into rounds - 6-8 of them. Don't press the knife down, you'll squash it. Draw it towards you. 

Repeat until you are out of everything. If you have anything left over or if any of the rolls fall apart beyond salvaging, chop it up, put it on lettuce, and call it a salad. Serve it on little dishes, provide soy sauce and wasabi for dipping and pickled ginger because pickled ginger is great and should be served all the time.

Eat 'em with chopsticks. It's more fun.

Price: 

Quinoa: $2

Nori: $1.50

Carrots: $.25

Cucumber: $.50

Avocado: $.50

Smoked Salmon: $1

Cream cheese: $.50

Eel: $3.25 (told you I was splurging; it cost $6.50 but I used half of it and ate the rest on salad the next day)

Nice Tuna: $.75 (the can cost more, but I only used part of it)

Total: $10.25

Serves: 2-3