Some Things To Chu On: Step-by-step: Sushi!

One thing I found out while preparing for this post is that it takes a lot longer to do things when you have to stop and take photos of the process!

Sushi is one of those things that really works best with two hands. Tripods, timers, and good helpers also make it a lot easier!

This weekend, we made sushi with salmon and crispy shrimp. Here's what you need for 3 hungry people:

Dried seaweed ("nori")

an egg

shrimp (about 15)

sushi grade salmon (about 0.8 lb)

sushi ginger

Also needed, but not pictured because I just forgot to take them out for the photo: wasabi (I used the powdered stuff), sushi rice, panko breadcrumbs, and probably some more stuff that I'll notice as I get through this post.

For the hardware, you need:

A big dish to hold the rice. I use a glass lasagne tray.

A big platter to hold the sushi

Wicked sharp knife.

Bamboo rolling mat

some cutting boards

As an aside, here's what sushi rice looks like before it's cooked. We use "short grain" rice, which is different from your standard "Uncle Ben's" or other rice because of its shape. There are other internal differences, having to do with starch content and all that, if you really want to know, just watch the Good Eats episode.

notice that the grains are nearly round.

The first thing you want to do is cook the rice. I have a rice cooker, which makes things really easy, but if you don't have one, just follow the directions on the rice bag. It'll take about 30 minutes to finish.

While that's going, start on the shrimp. You will want to peel and de-vein them all. Rinse them off, shake em dry, then throw them in a small container with a couple tablespoons of flour. You're going to do a basic breading, but using Panko breadcrumbs instead of regular ones. Panko is unseasoned, and flakier than regular breadcrumbs, so it fries up really nicely. Also, beat an egg with a tablespoon of water.

After you shake off the excess flour from the shrimp, you then dip each one in the egg, then coat in the Panko. To avoid getting my hand caked in breadcrumb goo, I use one hand for the egg, and the other hand stays dry in the panko.

Please excuse my messy countertops. There's not that much space! (side note: you can never have too much counter space)

By this time, the rice should be cooked. Taste it. Make sure it's not crunchy. If it is, add some more water and let it simmer for another 10 minutes. When it's done, put it in your lasagne tray, and sprinkle it with sushi vinegar. (Oh yeah, you need sushi vinegar too. That should have been in the first photo). Lightly toss the rice around with a rice paddle so it can cool off. (Get your assistant to do this. People like helping, because it means they get to eat sushi more quickly)

make sure you don't mush the rice. Mushy rice is icky.

Fry the shrimp to a light golden brown. I use a small pan filled with canola oil. Enough oil to come up a little more than halfway up the side of the shrimp. Heat is at Medium-Low.

Cutting the salmon. This takes a little practice to figure out where to cut, but don't worry - even if it looks like crap, it still tastes awesome!

Find the side of the salmon fillet that isn't as pretty. That's the side from where you will cut the strips for the sushi rolls. I didn't get a photo of this, but just cut a bunch of strips, about a half inch wide, down the length of the salmon. Pretend there were some good pictures of that process. You'll be left with a narrower slab of salmon like this:

See all the strips? That's what you want to do.

Now to cut the pieces for nigiri. This tends to be the tricky part to get right. It takes a lot of practice to learn the angle at which to cut to get the right sized piece of salmon. It's something like this angle:

Just keep cutting slices like that until you've reached the end. Try not to sneak too many pieces for a chef's taste-test. (One or two is ok. You have to make sure it's good quality fish, after all.)

At this point, my assistants and I were starting to get really hungry, so I didn't take as many photos of the process of making the rolls themselves. That'll come in a follow-up post.

Now you make the nigiri. Take a piece of the salmon in your left hand, and grab a small amount of rice in your right hand. Lightly roll it around in your palm so as not to squish the grains, but giving just enough pressure to make it hold together. Put a small dab of wasabi on the fish.