Home-made sushi: Attempt #1

As a lovely housewarming gift, Nina and I were given a sushi kit. Bowls, plates, chopsticks, chopstick holders, bamboo mats, the whole bit. We decided to use them as soon as possible, and after a quick shop at our local Korean grocery store we had most of what we needed.

We had decided earlier that it was going to be only vegetarian: Fresh fish is difficult to find in our neighbourhood. We got right into the chopping, of mangoes, portabellos, green onions, red peppers, cucumber and asparagus. I checked out some sushi tips online, and started the rice and miso.

The rice ended up pretty bland. I needed to cook it with a bit of salt, perhaps, and the ratio I read for the vinegar was off (couldn't taste any difference). The texture was fine, I think, and it was properly sticky without being mushy.

Rolling out the maki was a tad difficult, shall we say. We didn't know how thick the rice should be, and my first (and only attempt) ended up as a thick log, not really even edible. Nina and her sister Emily took over, and we ended up with some fine rolls.

Unfortunately our soy sauce was dark, a little overpowering, and the wasabi was cheap and hot than flavourful.

So, the lessons:

1) More vinegar, salt and sugar in the rice.
2) Lighter soy sauce.
3) Better wasabi.
4) Thin rice.

We're going to try again, and soon I hope. I'm looking forward to trying fish, and trying the inside-out rolls with sesame on the rice.