Make your own sushi:

Sushi always seems to be one of those hot topic foods no matter what the actual topic is. People debate where the best place to go for it is. People debate the best kinds to get. People debate the proper way to eat it. People debate the ecological costs associated with the overfishing of blue-fin tuna specifically for sushi. Actually, that last one isn't talked about enough I feel, even if it is the most important. I'll leave my opinions on that issue for another post next week, because for all the discussion on sushi, making it at home always seems to be the biggest debate always seems to be about making it yourself at home.

Its natural to be wary of making your own sushi. Fish and other seafood have a nasty reputation for carrying unwanted bacteria (and in the case of some shellfish, viruses such as hepatitis). Now, that reputation, while partly true (fish will spoil much quicker than other meats) is also less of a concern now due to the rising quality of fish available in your local market. If I have some extra money in my budget, I'll go to Whole Foods and chat with the people at the fresh fish bar to see what they recommend as the freshest fish. And when I don't have that extra freedom, I go the faux-crab and smoked salmon route. And there's always vegetarian sushi.

So how do you make sushi? What kind of expensive or odd equipment do you need? And what bizarre and expensive do you need to buy? Well, let me set your fears at ease: Sushi is easy to make, using simple (cheap) base ingredients and the utensils and equipment you probably already have in your home! Below I'll show you how I do it and how simple it can be for you too.

The basic ingredients that I used are shown above: cucmber, avocado, left over smoked salmon, and faux crabmeat. In the background in the bag are sheets of nori, pressed sheets of algae (its not seaweed actually) that you wrap the roll in.

1. Step one is to make your rice. You'll want a high quality sushi/short grain rice that has been well rinsed to removed the dust that will naturally accumulate. Place 1 cup of rinsed rice in a pot with 1 cup of water and bring to a boil. Once it does, drop the heat to low and cover. After 15 minutes remove from the heat completely and let the rice sit for 10 minutes. During that 10 minute rest, place 1 tbsp of rice vinegar and 1 tbsp sugar in a small dish with a small pinch of salt and microwave for 30 seconds. After the 10 minutes, transfer the rice to a bowl (preferably wood, glass, or stainless steel in that order) and pour the vinegar over the rice. Using a wooden spoon, mix up the rice to get it all coated and quickly cool it to room temp.

2. Once the rice is done, the rest of the job is assembly. Place a sheet of nori on a flexible silicone baking mat and cover all but a 1 inch strip at the end farthest away from you with rice.

3. Lay down your ingredients at the end closest to you, making sure not to add too much or else you'll overload the roll.

4. Using the mat, roll the end with the ingredients over onto itself, pushing excess mat ahead of you. Keep even and firm pressure on the roll, moving your hands to the edges slowly from the center with each roll. Once you've reached the end, use your fingers to firmly push on all sides to get the nori wet from the rice, which is what will seal the roll closed. Use a long, thin bladed knife and a short sawing motion to slice the roll into roughly 1/2" sized pieces.













To serve, do it however you want and will enjoy it. I prefer the dish of soy sauce with some wasabi mixed in route.

If you don't have a silicon baking mat, you could probably get away with using a sheet of parchment paper. There absolutely no need to have a specialty bamboo mat that you'll rarely use. And don't even bother with those kits that sell for $50 or so that claim to give you everything you need and will ever want. The rice can be bought in bulk from Whole Foods for cheap, nori is fairly inexpensive (especially if you buy it at an asian market), and you can dictate how much you spend on the fish depending on what you want to buy. So if you've ever thought of making your own sushi but were either too afraid to try it, or didn't want to deal with specialty equipment and ingredients, take heart, its not the big mystery your local sushi restaurant wants you to think it should be.

I'm on break till the end of the year to see family, so posting might be light, so I'll take the opportunity now to say Happy Holidays everyone!

Toasted salmon, avocado, and feta sandwich

During the summer of 2004, I had the great opportunity to travel to South Africa for 2 months and do research. I met a number of wonderful people and visited some awesome places. It was unforgettable. Especially the food. South Africa (ZA) isn't particularly known for its food. Its food heritage is a mix of English, Dutch, and traditional tribal. That sums up to lots of meats, lots of fried stuff, and lots of sweet stuff... mostly. There are of course some notable gems. Rooibos tea is one of my absolute favorites (I'd recommend Freshpak Rooibos which is a ZA brand and a great value). Biltong, which is similar but very much not jerky, is so loved by South Africans that there are literally stands in the mall that sell only that. Those may be the two most well known staples of the ZA diet, but there's certainly more.

Because it was the middle of the ZA winter, the university I was working at was on break for much of the time I was there. This meant that most of the shops on the campus were closed. Lunch came to be a choice between a pie shop (meat pies), a burger shop, and a sandwich shop (or packing). In an attempt to be healthy, I stuck with the sandwich shop, which had a number of unique and tasty creations. The one that became my standard was smoked salmon, avocado, and feta cheese on toasted brown bread (bread in ZA pretty much comes in either white or brown). Ever since I came back to the US this has become a staple of my repertoire.

Toasted salmon, avocado, and feta sandwich:

Smoked salmon
1/4 avocado, sliced
1/4 cup crumbled feta (I prefer the kind with black peppercorns)
2 slices bread


Assembly is quick and easy: Set a non-stick flat griddle over medium heat. Butter the outsides of the bread and place on the griddle when hot. Lay thin slice of the smoked salmon on on piece of bread and top with the avocavado. Spread the crumbled feta across the other piece of bread. Toast the edges until just beginning to brown. Flip the side with the salmon and avo onto the cheese side and drop the heat. Continue toasting till the cheese begins to soften. Serve with chips or a cup of soup and enjoy.

There will be one last seafood related post coming up, and after that I've got a special cupcake post so stay tuned!

Salmon with mushrooms and spaghetti squash in saffron sauce

Proving that I do more than bake, I'm offering my first "dinner" recipe. Now, I meant to have this posted last night, but I just started Netflix and got my first disc of the old Doctor Who series, so yeah last night was really unproductive. Sort of. But that will be for a later post.

I'm not sure why so many people I meet either outright hate or strongly dislike fish. Growing up in DE, and having family scattered along the Eastern Seaboard, seafood was naturally a part of my diet growing up. I've presumed that its because I now live in the "midwest" and thus really fresh seafood is a bit lacking. But its 2008 (for a little while longer at least) and modern transportation means that even the Kroger down the street from me has pretty decent fish fillets and shellfish. Maybe its an unsolvable mystery like reconciling quantum theory with Newtonian physics... or how many licks it takes to get to the center of Tootsie Roll Pop™.

Either way, I love fish. And shellfish. And even things that remotely fall into that category such as caviar, escargot, frog legs, 'gator, conch. I'm game for any of it. So, what happens is that whenever I go to the grocery store, I check out the seafood case. Now, being a graduate student, fish should be a luxury since its not the cheapest source of protein by far. To reconcile these two facts, I've taken to only buying items on managers special. They don't look the best, but you often have a good day, maybe two before you should pause before using it. And its half the price for what is still good quality food. So on a recent trip I found some nice sized salmon filets and picked two up. Now, when you buy any meat, and especially seafood knowing you need to use it within a day or two, you often need to get creative with what you make depending on what else you have available.

In my case, it was some left over spaghetti squash and some managers special mushrooms that I had picked up as well. I could have gone the easy route, sauté the mushrooms, broil the salmon with a quick garlic/olive oil glaze, re-heat the squash, throw it all together with a light drizzle of olive oil and some fresh pepper, and call it a night. But I remembered a recipe Mark Bittman posted on his blog once about fish with a saffron sauce made with yogurt. Since I generally have yogurt around since I usually make my own, I figured I'd give it a whirl. Now, his recipe calls for making the saffron sauce, and then drizzling it on cooked halibut filets. I of course changed it up a bit.

Salmon with Mushrooms and Spaghetti Squash in Saffron Sauce:

Saffron yogurt sauce:
1/2 cup yogurt*
1 pinch saffron threads
couple grinds of pepper
1/4 tsp. dill

Combine ingredients in a small cup or bowl, crushing the saffron as fine as possible. Incubate at room temperature for ~1 hour. The sauce should take on a faint yellow/orange color.

Notes: You can make the sauce a day ahead of time and incubate in the fridge to amp up the flavor.
*As I said, I make my own yogurt. I'd suggest using full fat or even greek, especially if you heat it like I did. If you want to use low/no fat, you'll probably want to drain it to remove as much extra liquid as possible.

Pan seared salmon, mushrooms and squash:
~1 cup spaghetti squash previously pulled into threads
1 salmon fillet
3 large crimini* mushrooms sliced
salt and fresh ground pepper as desired

Heat a non-stick pan over high heat. When hot, place the salmon fillet skin side up and sear the top for 1-2 minutes. Turn over and drop the heat to medium and cook till salmon is cooked through (time will depend on the thickness of the fillet). While the salmon is cooking, add a small amount of olive oil to a sauté pan over medium heat. When oil is fragrant, add the mushrooms and squash and cook till heated through. When salmon is done, remove skin and cut into small chunks. Add salmon to mushrooms and squash and add saffron sauce. Raise heat to high and cook just till the sauce is hot. Eat, enjoy.

My thoughts:

I liked the combination, and the saffron was still present but a bit muted by the stronger flavor of the salmon. I didn't follow the exact method I described above. I microwaved my squash and topped it with the salmon and mushrooms which has been cooked in the sauce. In retrospect, this caused the meal to be a little watery as the squash gave up liquid which I didn't drain off. If you cook the squash with the mushrooms, they should absorb the liquid and thus you shouldn't have that problem.

I've got a lot more recipes coming in the following weeks, one of which I'm still trying to perfect but I'm super excited about sharing when its done. So if you're enjoying this blog as much as I am so far, great. Share it with all your friends. And family. And co-workers. Heck, even strangers.