Break Out The Wasabi!

It’s sushi making time!

Sushi is one of my absolute favourite foods. I’m not sure when I cultivated my taste for these delicious nori-wrapped rolls, but I’m almost positive it started with the ever popular California Roll, and from there graduated to raw fish and more exotic tastes. Not only is sushi delicious, but it’s fun to eat, beautiful to look at, and if you choose your fillings right, a rather healthy snack or meal.

Living in Vancouver has spoiled me when it comes to sushi. I think we have as many – if not more – sushi restaurants in this city than Starbucks (and that’s saying something). From all you can eat for under $10 to the $225 Omakase Wagyu Dinner at Tojo’s, you can find sushi for any budget or palate. Honestly, if you live here there is little need to make your own.

But make my own sushi I did. I’ve made sushi a few times before, and it’s not exactly a difficult process, but it can be a bit time consuming to prep. The toughest part is getting the sushi rice just right.

One of the things I like about making my own sushi is I can use short grain brown rice in place of the typical white sushi rice you get at most restaurants (although there are quite a few now offering brown rice as a option – which you generally pay more for). It’s important to use short grain rice in order to get a end product that is sticky enough to build your sushi with.

I do not profess to be any sort of sushi master. I have yet to perfect my sushi rice, and my rolling skills are amateur at best. But I can still produce a decent product that I enjoy, and that is tasty enough to share with friends and family. And that’s fine by me.

I made two varieties of rolls – one featuring spicy shrimp and the other with marinated shiitake mushrooms. Although the rest of the fillings were the same, they still managed to provide different tasting experiences, and made for a great midnight snack on my graveyard shift at work.

I would love to give you a recipe, but honestly I just grabbed some ingredients, threw them together, and ended up with 4 large rolls (8 pieces each). And seeing as I’m not 100% confident in my sushi rice skills, giving your instructions on how to make that would just be silly! I will tell you what I put in my fillings though.

Shiitake Mushroom Roll:

• shiitake mushrooms (marinated in soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar)
• avocado
• cucumber
• carrot
• wasabi

Spicy Shrimp Roll:

• chopped west coast shrimp, mixed with mayo and sriracha
• avocado
• carrot
• cucumber

And that, my friends, was my sushi making adventure