Homemade Sushi!

My brothers & dad have started a tradition - they have sushi for dinner then watch some sort of zombie/horror movie or a movie & its remake. Earlier this week, my mom & I were asked to join as a send off for my brother who was going back to Oregon.

Honored, I accepted, given that my sushi experience is limited & my tastes have only been for Ahi. I was only allowed to join if I ate halibut. Raw halibut. I agreed.

Instead of heading out for sushi, we made it at home! It was such a cool experience and much harder than I expected. We did SIMPLE rolls - seaweed, fish and rice. I made a poke salad but other than that, there was nothing else but fish & rice.

For Christmas, I gave one of my brothers a sushi set - sushi rice, sushi rice vinegar, wasabi, pickled ginger and two rolling mats. He got a fancy-dancy, super-super sharp knife from his girlfriend for Christmas, so besides the fact that we didn't have avocado or cucumber, we were ready to rock n' roll. (Get it? Roll? Ha.)

Honestly, we did a killer job. The fish was fresh (ahi, halibut & salmon), the rice was uber sticky, and the Sapporo was cold. The key to rolling is to make sure your hands are always wet - seriously, that rice is SO sticky - move slowly but deliberately, and slice with a purpose.

1. Lay out seaweed on rolling mat
2. Add a thin but solid layer of sticky rice (sushi rice with some sushi rice vinegar on it), leaving one 1/2 inch edge free of rice
3. Add your fish (avocado, cucumber, etc) in the middle of the rice
4. Roll the seaweed over the rice & fish
5. Continue rolling until you get to the free end. The water and rice will allow it to stick to itself. Make sure you don't roll the mat into the sushi roll. It's easy to do.
6. Slice the roll into 1" pieces with an extremely sharp knife. Start at the bottom of the blade and, applying barely any pressure, slice towards you. You should be able to get through the roll in one slice but if not, repeat.
7. Dip in soy sauce (mixed with wasabi if you're not a baby like me) and enjoy!

It's not a cheap dinner per se - each fish was about $25/lb. There were seven of us, we had 3 lbs of fish and 1 lb of shrimp tempura so when all was said and done, it was probably about $125 (not including the Sapporo of course) which is not too bad for seven people!

More than anything, it was a fun experience with my family and I highly recommend it!