Maki Sushi and Sushi Bento

This past weekend I visted a garage sale and they were selling an assortment of sushi dishes, I thought I was in heaven! I found out that they had a japanese restaurant before and they just had them stocked and wanted to finally get rid of them. There were alot more that I wanted to get...but I don't have too much room in my kitchen so I just picked up about 10 assorted dishes (glass and plastic) and they were only US$8!

Because I went nuts with the dishes, I figured I should make some sushi tonight. This time I decided to make Maki Sushi with tamago, tuna, and imitation crab. I have previously posted sushi how-tos here if you want to learn how to make different types of sushi, including maki sushi. Below will be recipes to make tuna and tamago.



Canned Tuna Sushi Filling

1 can (5 oz) tuna (drained and finely chopped)
3 tsp sugar
3 tsp shoyu
3 tsp mirin

1) In a skillet, combine sugar shoyu and mirin and let simmer.
2) Add in tuna and mix until liquid evaporates.

Tamago

3-4 eggs
3 tsp sugar
3 tsp mirin
2 tsp shoyu
1/2 tsp salt

1) Beat eggs with sugar the rest of the ingredients
2) Pour egg mixture thinly on a greased (or non stick) skillet on medium heat.
3) Start from one end, lift and roll egg over until the eggs are fully rolled, making sure the eggs are cooked while rolling.
4) Push the "egg roll" back to the end you started with, then pour another dose of egg mixture thinly on skillet, wait for the egg mixture to set, then continue to roll to the other end of the skillet.
5) Continue step 4 until you are out of egg mixture, the roll should look like the size of an egg omlette.
6) Let "egg roll" continue to heat on low to cook through, remove from skillet and place on a cutting board.
7) Cut them into 1/2 inch slices.


It took me quite a while to get the tamago done. There are special skillet made especially for tamago making so you can look for those if cooking this way is too hard. While I was making this Mr. P asked if I was okay, since I was in the kitchen for quite some time. I told him I'm fine, and so he asked "are you having fun?", I quickly smiled and said "YES!!!" Ah...funny how cooking makes me happy. =)

Left over sushi goes into my bento box for lunch tomorrow.



















Bento box top tier contains 3 pieces of meatballs and caesar salad, bottom tier contains 6 pieces of maki sushi (3 are using brown rice, 3 using half brown half white).

Sushi Night

I haven't made dinner in a long time. At least nothing worth mentioning. Last night I decided to make something Mr. P would like: sushi.

I went to pick up some poke (hawaiian style raw seafood salad) from the grocery store before heading home early evening. I had spicy tuna, ahi poke, ocean salad, along with a fresh wild caught ahi fillet. I thought about making california roll too, but I didn't get any avocados from my in-law's tree and decided to save some money. The poke and the sashimi costed about $25.

I have been using hapa rice (half brown and half white) for quite some time now and didn't have any white rice. I thought I could try making sushi rice out of them -- not really a good idea. It's best to use white japanese rice.

Sushi Rice:

cook rice as directed. in a bowl, mix in one part sugar, 2 part rice vinegar, and a dash of salt. If it's 2 cups cooked rice, then 1 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp rice vinegar, and 1/2 tsp salt. pour into cooked rice, mix well and let cool.

Inside out sushi roll:

Place siran wrap as base, place nori on top of siran wrap, thinly spread sushi rice all over nori. Flip nori over so rice is on the bottom. Add your inside stuff starting at half an inch from the base of the nori (mine is spicy tuna), line the filling up horizontally. start rolling by grabbing the siran wrap and cover the filling slowly and tightly, lifting the siran wrap up as the nori hits the inside and continue to roll through. Use your hands to grip the roll tightly, then open up the siran wrap. To cut, run a sharpe knife through cold water (per cut) and cut them into 6 to 8 pieces.

Maki Sushi:

Same as inside out, but don't flip the nori over, so rice is on the inside. =)

Gunkan style:

Using a pair of wet hands, grab some rice to shape it into an oval shape rice ball. Cut the nori into strips (you should be able to see the lines lightly indented on the sheet of nori) then wrap it around the rice ball with the base of the rice ball touching one base of the strip. This is so that there is room on the top of the nori to create a "pocket" to put your filling on top. Then you can fill in whatever filling you want on top, the more, the better. Filling suggestions (possibilities are endless!): spicy tuna, tako poke (octopus), ahi poke, ocean salad, tuna with mayo, corn with mayo, tobikko (flying fish eggs), ikura (salmon roe), uni (sea urchin), etc.

Nigiri, or Sashimi:

No sweat, just cut them in slices and place it on top of an oval shape rice ball, or just eat them with wasabi and shoyu!

Of course there were plenty of poke leftover, I also made Edemame Rice with this too. for $25, i think it's not bad to play sushi chef!