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Cooking with Jie: The art of making sushi — in a hurry
Published: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 - 4:30pm
[Note: The Gargoyle's resident cooking expert, Jie Han, will publish articles throughout the year about her culinary adventures. If you have any cooking suggestions for Jie, contact her by clicking here.]
THE NIGHT BEFORE the Oct. 12 Uni High Cultural Fair, frantic scurrying could be seen and heard from a certain house in Savoy.
My house, in fact. For in 15 hours, the organizers of the fair's Japan booth would be giving away sushi as part of a taste of Japanese culture. And who else to make sushi than seniors Emily Chu, Beth Peregrine, and me?
First, we scooped out a large bowl of freshly steamed rice. It was rather dangerous, especially since I had already nearly burned my finger opening the rice cooker right after the rice was done.
We then proceeded to add in various amounts of rice vinegar, salt, sugar, sesame oil, and prebaked sesame seeds in small increments while mixing the rice.
When we finally arrived at the right amount of each flavor, Emily took a sheet of nori, or seaweed, and dumped a pile of rice in the center.
Then she dipped her hands into some sugary water, so that the rice didn’t stick to her fingers, and proceeded to spread a thin layer of rice that covered most of the sheet. The rice was spread thickly just so that the seaweed could not be seen, but not so much the rolled-up sushi would become too big.
Once the rice was spread, we added in strips of cooked egg, avocado, imitation crab meat, and sweetened yellow radish. Some of the sushi had all four ingredients in them, but others had various combinations, such as crab and avocado.
Once the colorful strips were laid down horizontally, Emily used a bamboo mat, a series of thin, round sticks strung together almost like Venetian blinds, to roll up and squeeze the sushi tight into a warm cylinder.
After we had amassed several of these half-dollar sized rolls, we began to cut them into thinner, bite-sized slices. First, we would rub some rice vinegar onto the serrated knife so that the cuts would be smoother. Then, placing the roll onto a cutting board, I used a sawing motion to create smaller wheels, the more familiar form of sushi.
The pieces were cut at approximately half-inch intervals, so that each sushi would be filling but still edible. Most of the rolls’ ends were consumed by yours truly, since they weren’t very pretty and sushi-like and rather undisplayable.
We were having quite the fun time when I noticed that we had only an hour left and hadn’t finished even half the pot of rice. Tripling our pace, we scurried around and rolled sushi as fast as we could.
Since we had only one bamboo mat, Beth and I ended up rolling the sushi by hand while Emily gave each roll a final hard squeeze in between spreading rice.
Finally, Beth cut the rolls and carefully placed them into baking pans lined with foil. Needless to say, the sushis got bigger and more crooked than the previous ones.
Preserving the sushi was probably the most difficult step. Sushi is best eaten right after it is made, when the rice is still warm. Otherwise, the rice hardens and becomes cold, losing much of its appeal. With that in mind, we mummified the pans with plastic wrap and hoped fervently that it would still taste all right after 15 hours.
Judging by how quickly the sushi disappeared at the fair, our efforts seem to have succeeded.
But back to the kitchen. We discovered that we had quite a bit of leftover ingredients to dispose of. As we ran out of rice for another roll and were reluctant to throw anything out — well, what else could we do?
“Start eating, NOW!”
A tray of sushi, all ready for the cultural fair. Gargoyle photo by Jie Han (click to enlarge)
