Rosie And Mr. Hawthorne Collaborate On Sushi Rolls.

Every now and then, I get a hankering for something. And today it was Sushi (寿司, 鮨, or 鮓) Rolls. What, you didn't know I was fluent in Japanese?

Here's the finished product.

Apparently, I've made makizushi, (巻き). And here's my music to cook by. Or you could use this to aerobicize by.

First the rice. Sushi rice is a short grain rice which gets sticky when cooked. You cannot use a long grain rice. Doesn't work since it's drier and doesn't stick together.

Rinse the sushi rice until the water runs clear.

This is 1/2 cup rice and 3/4 cup water. I let the rice sit in the water for 30 minutes then I brought it to a boil, covered it tightly, and reduced the heat to as low as it would go and cooked for 20 minutes.

Don't stir the rice, but fork it.

While the rice is hot, add in 1 TB of rice vinegar ...

... and 1 TB of Mirin. Let the rice cool completely.

While my rice was cooking, I made two dipping sauces: Dipping Sauce #1 2 TB chili garlic sauce

juice of 1/2 lime

Dipping Sauce #2 1 TB soy sauce

1 TB rice vinegar 1 small sliced scallion 1 drop sesame oil 1 tsp toasted sesame seeds

Sesame/soy dip on the left. Chili/lime on the right.

While the rice was cooling, I cooked my shrimp (shells on). I brought a pot of salted water to a boil, dropped the shrimp in, and, these being on the small size, they were ready in about 1 minute. Do not overcook shrimp. They'll get rubbery and tough on you.

Drain ...

... and sprinkle with a little Old Bay.

Since I got to pick a dozen crabs the other day, I "let" Mr. Hawthorne peel the shrimp tonight. I think he got off pretty damn easy. Ahem. Xmaskatie, notice my rosies?

Here are our fixin's for the sushi rolls: shrimp scallions carrot radishes (from my garden!) red Anaheim pepper (FMG!) bean sprouts cucumber pickled ginger

Thinly slice the veggies.

I put my bamboo sushi mat down, covered it with a piece of plastic wrap, then put down a sheet of nori.

Wet your fingers in water and spread out the rice on the nori sheet.

Press and spread the sticky rice evenly. You want the rice to be cool or at room temperature. Using hot rice will cause the nori to fall apart easily.

I toasted sesame seeds and Mr. Hawthorne sprinkled them over the rice.

Along with some black sesame seeds.

I spread another sheet of plastic wrap over top ...

... and then it took three hands to turn it over.

Bean sprouts.

Red pepper.

Shrimp.

Carrot, cucumber, and green onion.

And Mr. Hawthorne started rolling.

Voila! Or, Wallah! As Aunt Sandy would say.

I put the roll into the fridge to let it "set up," as Sandy says, whatever that means.

Take a sharp knife, dip in water, and slice.

Plate the sushi slices and add wasabi sauce, chili/lime sauce, and soy/sesame sauce.

Pretty.