Sushi-o-rama: Making the Sushi

After you cooked the sushi rice and, if you wanted, the cucumber salad, you can start making sushi! A lot of sushi making if finding the toppings you like and figuring out good combinations.  You do need some basic ingredients and supplies, though.

Necessary Ingredients

seaweed, in sheets, or rice paper (most are gluten free)
some kind of sushi rolling device, we have bamboo place mats that work great.
saran wrap
sushi rice (see my sushi rice post to see how to make it)

Then you need fillings.  There are tons of different foods you can use, here are the ones we use.

Fillings

--We have used these--
Cucumber sticks, plain or Japanese cucumber salad sticks.
baby shrimp (we buy them cooked)
avocado
fake LOBSTER- do not use fake crab, it has wheat! For some reason, lobster does not. *UPDATE: we recently bought gluten free fake crab!  Just check the label when buying fake crab/lobster*
smoked salmon
cream cheese
mango or papaya

--We haven't used these, but they would be yummy--
real crab
fish eggs
asparagus
shredded carrots
red bell pepper
Feeling adventurous?  Try raw meat, but it's not my fault if you get sick.

Again, decide on a few toppings that taste good so you don't have tons of shopping to do.

Making the Sushi

--Prep--
1.  Prepare sushi rice and cucumber salad.
2.  Put all the ingredients in little bowls for easy access.  Lay out the sushi rolling mats and cover with saran wrap.  Get rice vinegar to put in little bowls.  If you are handling the rice, you need your fingers wet with vinegar so it doesn't stick to you.

--Sushi--

1.  Lay out sushi seaweed (or rice paper, I am going to say seaweed) on the saran-wrap covered mat in front of you.  The seaweed has a shiny side and a matte side (I don't know how rice paper works).  Lay the matte side up.  Also, there are lines on the seaweed, make sure they are vertical.
2.  Get a spoonful of rice and put it on the bottom of the seaweed.  Spread it on the bottom 3/4 of the seaweed.  Leave a "groove" just above the first quarter.  The groove will be where you put the ingredients.  Try to spread the rice more than squish it.
3.  Choose your fillings, I recommend three ingredients.  Lay them horizontally across the groove, making sure they go all the way to the edges.
4.  Roll the sushi.  This is the "hard part", but once you get the hang of it, it is really easy.  I am ok at it, but my rolls turn out really fat.  My mom has ninja-sushi rolling skills, we don't know how she does it so perfectly.  She has a strategy to her rolling. Here are her instructions:

• Pull sushi down to the very bottom of the mat.  Then, grasp the sushi, saran wrap and mat and push it forward in a rolling motion.
• Once the sushi folds over, pull back the mat and saran wrap in a kind of flicking motion.  
• Continue to roll the sushi, also continuing the flicking.

To watch the rolling, skip to 2:00 on the video above. 

5.  Get a sharp knife and cut the roll into inch-and-a-half slices.  Ta-da! Sushi.