Sushi Dinner

Gabe here. So we're kind of broke, and as such have been forced to feed ourselves on a somewhat frugal budget lately. Our approach? Eat a lot of rice. And rice-based dishes like the veggie sushi we made tonight. It's easy to do, and the roll looks kinda phallic before you slice it. Post-slicing, it looked nice on little rectangular trays, and tasted pretty good with wasabi and some home-pickled ginger Jenny made.


J here. First course was broccoli and cauliflower tempura with ginger-sesame dipping sauce.

The sauce was improvised - I mixed soy sauce with a little sesame oil, a good deal of minced ginger and garlic, and a bit of sugar. If you make a sauce with sesame oil ahead of time, make sure you stir it up when you serve it or you'll get a mouthful of sesame.

I tried a new recipe for the tempura batter this time because it promised to make "crispy, restaurant style" tempura, but it pretty much turned out to be a bust. Their recipe added cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder to the basic flour, ice water and egg formula. The tempura ended up tasty, but nowhere near as crispy as you'd get in a restaurant. I've gotten better results doing it the basic way - about a cup of flour, plus one beaten egg and enough very cold water to form a wet dough. Mix it until just incorporated - lumps are fine.


Another thing we've learned on our recent quest to make the best ever falafel is that lower deep-frying temperatures produce a more fully cooked, crispy item. Steam the vegies just a little bit before hand, then get the oil to a temperature (probs around 350) where they take about a minute to cook.


Gabe again. So when making the sushi rolls themselves, we've found that a bottle of rice wine vinegar like that one (with which I have become close) is pretty much indispensible for several reasons. First, a pretty serious amount of it (about 1/4 cup for 2 cups of uncooked rice) gets mixed with a litte bit of sugar and salt (about a tablespoon each) to make the dressing that gives sushi rice its trademark stckiness. Later, when spreading the rice thinly out on the sheets of nori (seaweed) it turned out that coating my hands (and I'm talkng total dippage here) with the vinegar proved to be the best way to stop the rice from sticking to me instead of to it - a pretty vexing problem. And last, you need to use a little of it to seal the rolls of sushi when youve finished rolling them - kind of like sealing an envelope - and putting a little bit on the knife you use to cut the rolls doesnt hurt either. The upshot of this is: befriend yr vinegar, photobooth sessions optional (but recommended).

Anyway, if your vinegar is working properly there are only a few more things to know in order to be somewhat competent at making (very very basic) sushi rolls. Make sure to spread the rice thinly and leave a small flange/strip/whatever of nori uncovered to seal back to the roll at the end. Place your ingredients in a thin strip on the rice bed pretty close to the end of the nori from which you intend to begin rolling, roll tightly and squeeze the roll a little as you go to keep it together. Pretty basic stuff. When cutting with a less-than-razor-sharp knife like we have, rapid sawing motions help you cut smoothly through the roll.




And then we all ate. Thanks for reading!


NEXT: Greek Roasted Potatoes, Zucchini Fritters, and Buffy.
(p.s. we're going to start writing our dinner plans for the next day there ^ at the end of each post, so if you want in, give us a call and come eat!)