Monday, January 31, 2011

Sunday night sushi

It took me about 3 minutes to decide to tag this as "food day" Those posts are exclusively on Friday. But today is clearly Monday. eesh. But it's about food. I'm such a stickler for word and label choice. I still don't really like the tag, but I'm not making a new one just for a food post on a Monday. So here we are ... reading my internal crazy lady monologue. I digress ...

We haven't made sushi since October. We were long overdue.

We just did a very simple roll. (and there were ALL the same except for proportions).
Nori wrap
sesame seeds
sushi rice
cucumber
spicy shrimp

rolled.

sliced.

served with these fabulous condiments:
the top left is Plum Perfect Plum Sauce (Husband's favorite aside from soy)
below that is Sweet Ginger Chili Sauce by the ginger people (it has a fabulous flavor and caught our eye at Whole Foods a couple of months ago. Husband also likes it with eggrolls)
top right is sliced pickled ginger (so good)
below that is spicy mustard (the only thing on the table that is exclusively mine bc Husband doesn't like it)
then there's the tube of wasabi (and just a little dab will do ya)
and in the single bowl is soy sauce.

It was nice to have rolls that were all the same so we could change up the condiments. Everyone of the 6 have such distinct flavors it's nice to try them all on the same pallet.

Husband enjoying his last piece.
the ramekin beside Husband had the spicy "juice" he used to cook the shrimp with.

I'll be completely honest, the reason I didn't post a picture featuring the rolls is because they looked pretty horrible. I did a bad job of filling and rolling them and that made them harder for Husband to slice. They really looked like they were going to fall apart if they were sneezed on hard! But, they tasted fantastic. And actually stayed together better than the last two batches we made ... so there's that. ugly but functional.

When we were clearing the table Husband announced we could have made at least 2 more pieces of nori worth of rolls. As much as he loves this stuff, we'll have to make it again sooner rather than later.

3 comments:

Tanya Ott said...

Um, yum!! This reminds me that I have sushi rolling gizmos... just not sushi rolling skills. The first (and only) time I tried my roll was SOOO FAT it wouldn't even close properly. And forget about slicing it!

Besides being more judicious in my stuff, what suggestions do you have for rolling the perfect sushi? I'd love to give it another try (and maybe even document the results on our family food blog!)

Christy Ross said...

Tanya, this time I only used about 3 heaping tablespoons of rice and then just stuff from there. I also only put the rice in the middle instead of all over like I usually do. I felt like this time I was adding more or less rice, cucumber and shrimp to each roll just trying to get the proportions right. my rolling skills felt "off" I just try to get them as tight as possible so they don't fall apart.

This time I used a squirt bottle of water to dampen the entire wrap before starting. It helps with elasticity a little.

As for slicing, Jeremy bought a new knife that he uses ONLY for slicing the rolls so it stays sharp. He also wets it with hot water before every cut.

Remember even if they aren't beautiful they still taste great! You can just publish the condiments like I did. :-)

Tanya Ott said...

sounds like you've got it down to a science! I'm gonna have to cut & paste this and email to myself so I know how to do it next time.

and your condiments look lovely :)