The Grill-Meister and I learned to make sushi recently, in a class we took as a date night. Fun, fun, fun!
Surf and Turf 
Philly Roll 
Spicy Tuna Maki
Could We Do It at Home?
But could we do it at home? In the class, everything was prepped by some magical sous chef genie person ahead of time and all we had to do was put it together. At home, we’d have to procure the right ingredients, make the special sticky rice, do all the chopping, etc. Would it be as good – and would homemade sushi be worth the time and effort?
Homemade Sushi Guidebooks
I did what I always do when tacking something new: find a book. Google is great but I still love to have something tangible in my hands, too. And, if one book is good, two are better!
Equipment
Gear, we also needed gear!
Special Ingredients for Homemade Sushi
Making sushi at home requires ingredients that aren’t already in the pantry.
Amazon was the source of most of it. The rest (not pictured) came from the grocery store.
Homemade Sushi: The Results
The results? Not bad! Not bad at all. We made four kinds of sushi in about an hour one evening, after I started the process earlier in the day by making the sticky rice and chopping the ingredients.
Our homemade sushi was a really good first try, but we both felt like it would have been very difficult if we hadn’t gone to the class and learned the basics. Date night classes pay off!
The sushi looks good, but two thoughts on presentation. Sushi is minimalistic. Fewer rolls on more space helps with the look. I haven’t seen swirls and dots on much food lately. Again, keeping the minimalistic theme, I’d leave the plate clean. The bottom picture, in class, looks great. I know this because what’s her name would eat sushi three times a day. 🙂
Great advice! I am a serial garnisher and have trouble holding myself back. Bringing an artist’s eye to food is something that I hope is in my future as I learn more about the visual arts. And yes, I could eat sushi three times a day, too! (What’s not to like???) Thanks for the recommendations, and I promise, I’ll try to be more minimalistic. 🙂
That’s just me. I think everything should be minimal. Luckily, we agree on couches. Mid Century Modern. Japan tour. 17 days. 3x a day. Plus Pockey snacks. And tea. Gallons of tea.
I absolutely LOVE sushi, and what a fun date night. I love creativity in both food and what we do in our time away from home! Great writing, and it is so encouraging.
Anne, I’m so glad you liked it. I thought cooking classes might be a little too basic since I’ve been cooking all my life, but the two we’ve taken have definitely expanded our horizons. I love lifelong learning!
You and me both, Kim! I absolutely love to learn new things and I have never stopped learning even after my degree work. I am currently involved with a three-year correspondence course that covers spirituality, geography, history, archaeology, and lots of other things, and I intend to study whatever I can afford to study the rest of my life. I think cooking is a good thing to add in because it is in its own way a spiritual thing we do that feeds body and soul as we create. It is something of an art too in my mind, just like any art form I practice and love. It is a huge step up from just cooking. It definitely involves spirituality, the study of cultures and the foods they eat and the ways they eat those foods and how those things came into being, and it definitely involves a beauty and love of creativity in art that fills us with love for those we create the food for. I think it opens up a lot of worlds, and it is fantastic. I so admire those who turn it into such a great adventure, and when my life partner, Richard is home from surgery Monday, I want us to have that kind of date night too. We are seniors, but you are never too old to learn and grow in so many different ways. Thank you most kindly.