bentobeautiful*: Tutorials

contrary to popular belief, making sushi is very easy, only needs a few ingredients, and doesn't have to contain any raw fish. Once you have mastered the basic way to make sushi, you can go wild and put whatever you like in it.

Maki Roll Sushi Tutorial

Making maki rolls is very easy and satisfying. you can get quite an impressive looking end result without having to really do very much work!

1. Start off by gathering your equipment and ingredients that you will need:

bamboo mats can be bought from specialist Japanese shops and only cost about £1.50. Nori and sushi rice can also be bought at specialist shops very cheaply but a lot of supermarkets will have these ingredients too, although they may cost a bit more. Pudding rice can be used in place of specific sushi rice. I'm going to make salmon and spring onion maki rolls for this tutorial.

2. Rinse the rice. For this recipe I used a cupful of rice. You can either do this by putting your rice in the bowl, filling with cold water and mixing with your hands for a second, then draining the water and repeating until the water runs clear, or as I usually do, put the rice in the sieve and run it under the water until the water runs clear and not milky. Then leave the rice in the sieve on top of the bowl for 30 mins to 1 hour.

3. Cook the rice. I used one and a quarter cups of water for one cupful of rice. Use a steamer of boil in a pan for about 15-20 mins. The rice should be fairly sticky when its done. Leave it in the pan to steam and cool gently for about 10 mins.

4. Stir in the sushi rice seasoning (this can be made up by heating rice wine vinegar, sugar, soy sauce, and mirin together in a pan gently, or you can buy ready made seasonings). The rice should be quite 'claggy' (I can't think of a better word to describe it!)

5. Fill a small bowl with some salty water. Lay out your bamboo mat and lay a sheet of nori, so that it is right at the end of the bamboo sheet.

6. Rinse your hands with the salty water (this means that the rice wont stick to your hands, so you'll have to keep doing this). Place the rice onto the nori sheet and use your hands to spread it across the sheet. Leave about a 5cm gap at the furthest end of the nori.

7. Using your hands, make some 'troughs' lengthways into the rice . Then it is as simple as laying your fillings into the troughs

8. Grab the end of the bamboo mat closest to the nori, and use it to roll up the sushi:

9. Leave the roll for a few minutes so the nori can settle. It softens and sort of moulds itself around the warm rice so you need to give it a few minutes to harden up a bit again.