A few weeks ago, a friend invited us over to her house for after-church lunch and she served up homemade sushi and tempura. It was a very delicious and filling lunch. So I gathered some tidbits from her, scoured the internet for more sushi making information, stocked up on necessities from Sunrise Supermarket and went to work.
Our family’s favorite roll has the avocado, cucumber, and carrot filling in it – soft and creamy texture from the avocado complimented by the crunchy bite from the cucumber and carrot slices. I also added a little sweet-spicy chili sauce and mayonnaise mix for added creaminess.
Our choice of fish cuts are on the pricier side (tuna or salmon, anyone?) so we settled for imitation crab. However, I had a few pieces of shrimp in the freezer so I coated those with tempura batter and fried it up, added it to the filling and rolled away. Extra crunchy! Loved it! The second time I made sushi, I wanted another seafood filling and found some pollock fillet in the freezer. Those were thawed, sliced into strips, froze again, dipped in tempura batter, and fried. It was the perfect crunch…and it didn’t taste very fishy at all.
You’re really only limited by your imagination when adding fillings to your sushi. My dear hubby has this obsession with an avocado, cucumber, and sweetened tofu roll. I have yet to find a way to make that.
Tempura and sushi feels like they belong together. Green beans tempura is my favorite ever but again, use your imagination and always start with what you like. Our veggie tempura almost always has a combo of green beans, sweet potatoes, and eggplant. I tried broccoli tempura at a friend’s house and it has this roasted nutty flavor…soo good. Shrimp tempura tops my list but I seldom make it because my dear hubby’s not such a big fan. For batter, I usually whip up a mix of a cup of flour and just enough beer to moisten. Or you can certainly use those sold at the Asian stores. I used a mix out of the box when I made the sushi this weekend and they came out perfect in flavor and crunch.
One of the best things I love about making sushi at home is the freshness of the rolls. The dressed rice is still warm and all the other ingredients were freshly prepared…I think some sushi places in town just lost our business!
For inspiration, I went to The Pioneerwoman‘s blog who wrote a series of posts on the matter. Here’s how to cook your sushi rice. Here’s how to make your sushi rolls. To a novice like me, these posts were very helpful, especially having a visual reference to the process.
And now where to find some eel for my next sushi?!