There is nothing better than heading up to the local sushi joint and ordering up a couple of your favorite sushi rolls. There is always so many options to pick from. I love the soft shell crab! The Mrs. will order california rolls all day long. That was the good old days though. The chances of finding us at the sushi restaurant now are slim to none. Now the little guy just wants to be on the ground crawling wherever we are, so its harder to go out to grab a bite to eat anywhere. We were really in the mood for some sushi, so what do you do if you can't get it? You bring it to you. No no no, not order it. You roll it yourself.
Not gonna lie, there is a finesse to rolling sushi but we had a blast either way. Jill prepped most the fix-ins. We used cucumbers, avocados, and carrots, and cream cheese. I prepared all the meats, rice (we used sticky sweet rice), and put the rolls together. For meats we had imitation crab, smoked salmon, and pinko fried shrimp. We picked up all the ingredients at Publix.
So above is the basic layout of making your rolls. The rice was steamed and then layer on the seaweed wrap. The rice can get sticky, so make an equal amount of water and vinegar mixture and dip your fingers in that to avoid the stickiness. Add your fix-ins on top of the rice ( be careful not to add to much because it will be hard to roll -- you will get the hang of it as you go). The seaweed is lain out flat on top of a sushi rolling mat (the bamboo looking mat in the picture above), it is important to have one of these because it makes the rolling process much easier. You can usually find these at a local asian market. I like to lift the mat from both sides to compress the fix-ins and rice. Once the fix-ins and rice look nice and firm, fold the mat over so that the seaweed reaches the end of the fix-ins (in the picture , I mean lift from the bottom end of the mat and roll up to the top part of the rice). Squeeze the roll to compress the rice and tuck the seaweed with the top end of the rice. This makes the rest of the rolling process easier. Once the seaweed is nice and tucked continue rolling. Once you reach the far end of the seaweed (in the picture, the top), moisten the seaweed with the water-vinegar mixture, then finish rolling. Roll the mat all the way through to complete the sushi roll. That's it to the rolling.
Then you have to slice the little rolls of asian cuisine. Just remember to dampen your very sharp knife with the water-vinegar mixture after each slice. The cream cheese will stick to the knife with each slice, but you need a clean knife to make clean slices. As well, remember you are not the Kung Fu of rolling sushi yet, so if they fall apart, just moisten the seaweed ends and stick back together...
One of my wife's favorite appetizers to order whenever we go to a Chinese, Thai, Japanese, or any asian restaurant is crab rangoon. So I decided to surprise her with some of these too. For these you need: wonton squares, cream cheese, finely diced carrots, dried minced onion, lime juice, worcestershire sauce, and asian hot chili sauce, and egg whites.
Soften the cream cheese in the micro for 20-30 seconds. The in a bowl mix the cream cheese, little bit of diced carrots, tablespoon of dried onion, splash of lime juice, splash of chili sauce, dash of worcestershire sauce. Take a single piece of wonton and scoop some of the cream cheese mixture in the center. moisten the edges of the square with the egg whites, then fold from corner to corner. Press the edges together firmly to seal. Heat up some oil in a wok on med-low to med. Carefully place the wontons in the fryer and fry until golden brown then flip and brown on the other side. Once finished place over some paper towels and let cool. Ready to serve, We like them with sweet chili sauce.
So there is sushi night at home, We plated everything together and it ended up delicious. We made three rolls and was way to much for the two of us. Two would have been fine. The best part is there is so many ways to prepare your own. Add whatever you like to your rolls, If you have a family, then each can have them their own way. Joey was ready to dig in, but he isn't quite old enough yet. Enjoy!
