How to: Sushi night at home

Sushi is known as a pretty expensive dish, especially when you want to get the proper stuff. Do you love eating sushi? Do you feel restricted because of the price? Do you not have the necessary material to roll them up nicely? Well, I have the perfect answer for you. At home we eat sushi pretty often (at least like once a month) and this is how we do it. It's super easy and MUCH MUCH cheaper than eating out! (When I did it with friends in Holland it was around 5,5euros per person and we were stuffed!).

First of all, find a fishmonger and buy salmon, tuna, coquille, shrimps, etc. Do NOT buy it at a supermarket! It's not always mega fresh and you might get sick! (I mean it might not happen necessarily, but I would say avoid it, just in case. No one wants worms in his stomach right? :/). The best is to tell your local fishmonger that you are planning to make sushi (ie. eating the fish raw) and he will tell you if it's ok or not. For the quantities, let's say 100g-150g of salmon for one person? The rest (like tuna) is quite expensive so just order less :P Once you have your fresh fish, you will have to cut it to make it as close as sashimi as you can. For this you need a nice sharp knife. This is the tricky part for me, trying to cut the salmon/tuna nicely... But just try! It can also be thinner pieces than on the photo (this was cut professionally, but just so you can have an idea!)

Tuna

Salmon

Coquille St. Jacques

Shriiiimps

Ikura (Salmon eggs)

Now for the rice... Cook some rice in your rice cooker (you need sticky rice for this so risotto rice also works). When it's ready, place it in a bowl and add rice vinegar, just enough so you can lightly smell it in the rice. Set aside until you are ready to munch.

Just looks like normal rice :P

For this sushi night at home you can also prepare some cucumber cut, avocado (all cut into stripes) and have some philadelphia cream cheese. 

When you are ready to eat, prepare the soya sauce, wasabi and only at the last moment take your nori (seaweed) out. Why only at the end? Seaweed is dry. If you leave it in open air it won't be as crispy/dry anymore, and you really don't want that. Sushi rolls in restaurants are normally prepared right when you order them. If they are made in advance the seaweed is all humid and soggy... which is how it is in those already made lunch boxes in supermarkets... Anyways, fold the seaweed paper into 4, make a little pile. Put everything on the table, and now you are ready to commence the feast!

How the table looks like when everything is ready!

How to:

Take a little bit of everything (if you like everything) rice, salmon, tuna, avocado etc. Have your soya sauce and wasabi ready nearby. First, take some seaweed and add some rice on it (not too much so you can make sure to fold it afterwards!)

My dad also added wasabi here

You can either cut your sashimi into half like on the photo or but the entire piece on it. 

Fold it as shown in the picture:

It should look like this! As you can see it's not perfectly rolled. If you are one of those people that just likes folding with the bamboo thing then this is definitely no fun for you…

Pretty easy! :P

Then dip it in soya sauce! (It's best not to put tooo much of it, just a light dip or otherwise it might be super salty)

*dip dip*

And then NOM! so yes, you can do a number of different combinations:

•  Shrimp + Japanese mayo
• Cucumber + Japanese mayo
• Salmon + avocado
• Salmon + avocado + philadelphia cream cheese
• Tuna + avocado + philadelphia
• Tuna + avocado
• Coquille 

etc, etc. 

I like this way of doing it, it's fun to do with your friends and everyone eats whatever they like! You don't have to wait to make ALL the rolls (maki) and starve on the side while preparing everything (which also takes forever). Your seaweed also doesn't have time to become all soggy from the rice. I think it's a pretty good dinner idea when you have people over (which is what we do at home) and the guests always seem to enjoy this presentation of sushi!

Hope you try it! Enjoy!