Easy Sushi Rolls

The Supreme Pizza Roll

noreply@blogger.com (bengwade) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:04:00 +0000

Yes. The supreme pizza roll is the result of Pizza Hut and Benihana enjoying too many drinks together last night and making bad decisions. This, my friends is good late night drunk food (though I would not make this drunk, do it before the consumption begins).

Eating a hot slice of pizza at 2am after closing was a great memory (blurry at times) from college. What was better was having a couple slices cold the next day for lunch. Imagine rolling up day old cold pizza and slicing it into 6 pieces. I'll take two please...

The Supreme Pizza Roll

Total Pieces: 12 pieces + 4 ends

Rice Time: 30 min. Prep Time: 20 min. Total: 50 min.

Ingredients

1 Cups Sushi Rice
2 Nori seaweed sheets
1/3 lb. Italian sausage, cooked, drained, dried
1/4 Package of pepperoni
1/4 Green pepper, sliced thinly
1/4 Red onion, sliced thinly
1/4 Cup sliced mushrooms
1/4 Cup pizza sauce
1/4 Cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Step 1: Pre-heat broiler on your oven for the low setting and place rack on the highest rung. Cover your bamboo rolling mat with plastic wrap. Cut a nori sheet in half and lay a half, shiny side down on the plastic.

Step 2: Spread a 1/2 cup of rice evenly on the nori.

Step 3: Add a strip of pepperoni across the center of the roll and lay 2 Tbsp of pizza sauce over the pepperoni.

Step 4: Strategically lay sausage, green pepper, red onion and mushrooms on top of the pizza sauce. Sprinkle with the shredded mozzarella.

Step 5: Place roll on a small cookie and into the oven for close to a minute. Just enough time to melt the cheese. Pull it out immediate, you do not want to burn anything else.

Step 6: Grab the edge closest to you and use the mat to roll sushi into a cylinder. With a sharp knife, trim the ends square. Cut into six pieces.

Sushi Tools of the Trade

noreply@blogger.com (bengwade) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:06:00 +0000

A blacksmith has his hammer and blast furnace. A lawyer has his pen and pinstripe suit. An IT consultant has his laptop. Every trade has their common tools they use to make their job function or make it easier. Its one of the many things that separates us from animals.

This article will go over the few unique tools you will need to construct your sushi creations. While you can make sushi with your bare hands, these tools make it much easier and enjoyable.

The Bamboo Roller

The bamboo roller is by far the most important piece of equipment to making properly formed sushi. Small, similarly sized pieces of bamboo are strung together to form a flexible highly bendable, but supportive sheet. The stiffness of the bamboo laterally keeps the sushi roll straight while the sheet woven together allows you to roll with even pressure and compresses the sushi to keep it tight.

Plastic Wrap

Go ahead. Try rolling sushi with a bamboo roller and not put plastic wrap around it. You will spend the next half hour picking tiny grains of hard rice from your roller and wish you had listened to this post. Plastic wrap not only protects the bamboo roller, it also can be used to wrap the sushi tightly. Likewise it holds the sushi together when cutting into pieces.

A VERY Sharp Knife

This is a crucial piece of hardware. Sushi can be pretty delicate. So the easier a blade slices through things, the better chance of your sushi staying together when you cut it into pieces. Dull blades will catch and rip apart the nori sheet or squeeze out the insides.

Wooden Spatula

When folding the rice vinegar mixture into sushi rice, it is best done with a wide lipped wooden spatula. Hearkening back to the old days of sushi lore, the Japanese used to use large wooden spoons because they would dissipate heat easily and the rice would tend to stick less to the wood.

Do you use other tools for making sushi? Put them below in the comments section.

The Bacon & Eggs Roll

noreply@blogger.com (bengwade) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:51:00 +0000

The best way to start your day is with a healthy combination of carbs, protein and vegetables. The first meal of the day helps you power through the morning and eat less in the draining hours of the afternoon. Eating a balanced simple breakfast will help you loose weight as well.

Bacon and Eggs is a classic American breakfast that is usually eaten with some sort of carb like toast or hash browns. This roll gives you an American tradition packed into six bite size pieces for the man (or woman) on the go.

The Bacon & Eggs Roll

Total Pieces: 6 pieces + 2 ends
Rice Time: 30 min. Prep Time: 15 min. Total: 45 min.

Ingredients

1 Cup Sushi Rice
1 Nori seaweed sheet
2 Green onions, white ends cut off
2 Strips of bacon, fried but NOT crispy
1 Egg scrambled, cooked in flat sheet

Step 1: Fry bacon in one pan to the point where they are cooked, but not crispy. They need to be pliable for rolling. Remove from pan and let cool on a paper towel.

Step 2: In the same pan with the bacon grease to fry the scrambled egg. Do not stir the egg while cooking. Use a spatula to flip once. Remove from pan and let cool on a plate.

Step 3: Cover your bamboo rolling mat with plastic wrap. Cut a nori sheet in 2/3rds and lay the larger part shiny side down on the plastic.

Step 4: Spread a 1/2 cup of rice evenly on the nori.

Step 5: Flip the rice covered nori sheet over and place sheet of egg on nori. Place bacon strips criss cross on top of the egg.

Step 6: Grab the edge closest to you and use the mat to roll sushi into a cylinder. With a sharp knife trim the ends square. Cut into six pieces.

The California Roll

noreply@blogger.com (bengwade) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:00:00 +0000

The California roll is regarded as one of most popular and well known varieties of maki-zushi in the United States and maybe even globally. Every time my wife and I go out of sushi (not as often as I like), we get one of these. It is the minimum level in a sushi order.

This is a good roll to start with if you are a beginner to making sushi because its ingredients are fairly common and cheap. This version of the California roll will use fake crab meat because it is readily available in most supermarkets around the US and it is less expensive stuff. However, if you want the true taste of California, you will get the real stuff.

The California Roll

Total Pieces: 6 pieces + 2 ends

Rice Time: 30 min. Prep Time: 5 min. Total: 35 min.

Ingredients

1 Cup Sushi Rice
1 Nori seaweed sheet
1/2 Avocado, sliced into 1/4in thick pieces
5-6 Pieces of fake crab meat
1 Cucumber (read below on how to cut)
1 Handful of sesame seeds

Step 1: Cover your bamboo rolling mat with plastic wrap. Lay a nori sheet shiny side down on the plastic.

Step 2: Spread a 1 cup of rice evenly on the nori and sprinkle with the sesame seeds.

Step 3: Flip the rice covered nori sheet over and place a strip of cucumber, avocado and crab pieces in the center of the sheet.

Step 4: Grab the edge closest to you and use the mat to roll sushi into a cylinder. With a sharp knife trim the ends square. Cut into six pieces.

How to Make Sushi Rice

noreply@blogger.com (bengwade) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 20:50:00 +0000

One of the most important components of sushi is the sushi rice. Light sticky rice grains form an easily pliable material that binds and gives structure to the sushi roll. Sushi rice is also the main source of carbs in a sushi dish.

Master sushi chefs like Masaharu Morimoto spent years just learning how to cook and mix the perfect blend of sushi rice. While I have not spent years meditating over rice and practicing techniques, I have put together and easy quick recipe for sushi rice that I will use for all of my sushi roll recipes.

Sushi Rice

Yield: 1Cup of Sushi Rice (enough for one roll)

Prep time: 5 min. Cook time: 20 min. Total: 25 min.

Ingredients

1 Cup sushi or short grain rice
1 Cup water
1 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 Tbsp kosher salt

Step 1: Place rice in a mixing bowl and cover with water (not the 1Cup in the ingredient list). Stir the rice with a spoon, then drain the water. Repeat this step 2-3 times until the water runoff is clear.

Step 2: Place rice and 1Cup of water in a small saucepan over high heat and bring to boil, uncovered. Once rice comes to a boil, reduce heat to lowest setting, cover and cook for 15 min. Remove from heat and let stand for 10 min, covered.

Step 3: Combine rice vinegar, sugar and salt in a small bowl and heat in microwave for 30 seconds. Transfer rice from saucepan to a small glass bowl and add vinegar mixture to rice. Fold thoroughly till every grain is covered. Allow to cool to room temp before using to make sushi.

What is this Easy Sushi Rolls Thing?

noreply@blogger.com (bengwade) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:36:00 +0000

There are a couple things people will tell you about me. They will say I love bacon, beer and technology and sometimes they borderline on an unhealthy obsession. What they may not know is my closeted love for the art of sushi.

Many people know sushi as that Japanese food with raw seafood and rice and seaweed and they don't want anything to do with it. This is not a completely unfounded argument as there are a lot of varieties of sushi that contain raw salmon, tuna, crab, roe and even octopus that can intimidate the meat and potatoes crowd! Another common American perception of sushi is that it is expensive and comes in small portions. Two things Americans do not like. Less adventurous Americans out there, listen up! That's why you need me!

You will find simplified recipes in this blog that are a BOLD FUSION of American culture and Japanese tradition. This blog will be useful to those who want to try their hand at the sushi art, but are intimidated by its ingredients and difficulty. I teach the techniques and blend the tastes of America and Japan to show sushi is an easy, compact way to enjoy food. If you are a purist of sushi and feel it should remain solely an untouched Japanese culinary art, then this blog may seem perverse. BUT there is a wide group of people out there that are ready to blend American favorites like mac & cheese and pot roast with the wildly popular California roll.

There is no reason why a sushi roll needs to stay locked into a rice, seaweed, protein veggie pattern. My recent search for a compact post workout meal has spurred me to dive head first into the art of making sushi. In this blog I will post recipes containing simple directions, pictures and alternative ingredients. As a subscriber to this blog, I encourage you to post comments to recipes with alternative ideas, opinions and anything else.

So let's get out there and make something that satisfies our hunger for new flavors. Make something that meets all of our basic nutritional needs in one compact cylinder. Make something beautiful. Make something that promotes good health and inspires the creativity in all of us.