I am always surprised how many people like a dish that is basically raw fish and vegetables in rice surrounded by seaweed. Last Saturday we had the first Sushi party of the year and it was quite a good crack. So I thought I put a few instructions online how to make sushi.

Sushi is a great thing to make for parties as the amount of sushi grows exponential with the time it takes to prepare it.

So lets start with shopping. The most important thing is fresh fish. If possible avoid the frozen and pre-packed supermarket stuff and go to a market to get the catch of the day. It really makes all the difference.

There is a variety of fishes suitable for sushi. Personally I prefer tuna and salmon, this time I also bought some sword fish for a change.

Then get some toasted seaweed sheets, also known as Sushi Nori, rice, rice vinegar, Soya sauce and Wasabi from a near by asia shop. These days you will also find most of the ingredients in your local supermarket. You also need some vegetables, carrot and cucumber are a common choice. But feel free to use what ever you fancy, in fact nobody said that sushi has to be with raw fish, you can make vegetarian ones as well.

Also make sure you have some sugar and salt at home.

Sushi is 80% rice, so lets start preparing in the rice as you have to wait for it to cool down anyway.

To ensure that the rice will be sticky, it helps to wash it.

Start to boil 1000 grams of rice in 1500 millilitres of water.

In the meantime mix 120 millilitres of rice vinegar with 60 millilitre of sugar and 10 millilitre of salt.

Once the rice starts boiling pure the vinegar-sugar mixture slowly into it and turn the heat down. Let it slowly boil for 1800 seconds.

The result should be a nice sticky and lightly sweet and sour tasting rice. Let it cool down while preparing the rest.

Cut the vegetables in little stripes, roughly the length of the sushi nori.

Once finished with the vegetables, cut the fish in little rectangular fillets.

Once the rice cooled down you can start making the sushi. I am big fan of maki sushi, so lets start with rolling some makis.

Take a nori and spread rice on it. Then put some fish and vegetables on one end and start to roll it. Using a makisu (bamboo rolling mat) helps, so does using a bowl of vinegar and water to prevent the rice of sticking to your fingers.

You can squeeze them quite a bit while rolling. Put the finished roles on a plate and put them in the fridge.

Making more traditional nigiri sushi is quite simple, just from some cuboids ( approximately 55mm x 30mm x 30mm ) by pressing the rice between your hands. Then put some fish on top of it. If it doesn’t want to stick on it, you can use some sea weed to bind it to it, but personally I prefer to glue it with a little bit of wasabi to the rice.

Now this isn’t a traditional combination, but I usually make some with smoked salmon as well. Some might call that wrong but the taste blends in quite nicely.

Take the maki roles from the fridge and cut them into 20 mm thick stripes. Little hint, start cutting in the middle.

Now serve. Mix some wasabi and soy sauce as a dip. If you see Calpis somewhere, get a can or two, it suits the dish nicely.

Well, have fun trying it yourself!

This time I also brought the Manga aspect back. The sushi parties originally evolved out of Manga parties, so when I found a copy of DearS I couldn’t resist running it in the background. Without audio it was even weirder then it normally would be.