Homemade Sushi

I absolutely love sushi, it has to be one of my favourite foods, however it isn't cheap to buy and I like to eat a lot! I never wanted to try to make it as it looks like a long and fiddly process and I don't particularly like to cook for myself. I never endeavoured to make sushi until we decided to have a Japanese night at mine. Sushi was the starter.

The longest part of making sushi is getting the rice right. It needs to be washed plenty of times and soaked for about an hour before even cooking it. The actual hands on making of sushi doesn't take that long, it's the preparation of the rice.

I followed two recipes to make this sushi. I followed This Recipe to prepare the rice, it's very detailed and if followed correctly makes amazing rice. It takes a while but is definitely worth it. I followed the same recipe to make the Chu Maki (medium sized rolls, nori on the outside) however with different ingredients. I used carrot, cucumber, bell pepper and crab meat. To make the Uramaki (inside-out roll, rice on the outside) I used exactly the same ingredients again but followed This Recipe.

Making the first roll was a scary experience, I honestly thought I'd be hopeless at is. The first roll was Chu Maki, I thought it would be easier with the rice inside the nori. The roll turned out way bigger than I expected, I didn't think it would stay together in a roll but alas it did! The next Chu Maki I made I put less rice and vegetables in so that the end result wasn't so big, it went well.

Uramaki rolls... I was completely sceptic of these. In my head all the rice was just going to fall off and I was going to end up with a sushi salad, but they turned out way better than I expected. I still have far to go to perfect my sushi making skills but I expect I'm going to be getting lots of practice. The sushi I made tasted great thanks to the very thorough recipes.

To serve I filled a small bowl with Soy Sauce and filled another with spicy mayonnaise: Sriracha Hot Chilli Sauce mixed into mayonnaise. I added the sauce to the mayonnaise a little at a time until it tasted amazing. Sriracha Sauce is so tasty! I'd never had it until I made sushi.

With the leftover rice, which took way to long to make to just throw away, I made a 'sushi salad'. The rice, the rest of the vegetables in a bowl with some toasted sesame seeds and a splash of soy sauce. Yum! Any left over nori would be a great addition too. Or spice it up with a little sriracha sauce.