I made sushi!
Saturday I went to Uwajimaya in the International District, to get supplies to make sushi. I love the Japanese. Uwajimaya is this sprawling market that has literally everything you could ever need to dine or entertain Japanese-style. My mind just flips over backwards being there -- it is so so crowded, and colorful in that anime pigs and pandas style, and the air is filled with foreign conversations and all the packaging and most of the signage is in Japanese. There is a constant buzz of activity and a controlled consumer chaos. I love it, but I can usually last only about forty-five minutes before I start getting sensory overload. Plus it's really weird to walk around a foot taller than every other person in the place.
The produce section is really like being in another country -- there are fruits and roots and vegetables I have never seen before, and would not know what to do with -- but I am so drawn to their colors and smells that I want to bring some home to experience.
I found everything I needed, including black sesame seeds, sticky rice, seaweed salad, nori, tamari, mochi and red bean paste, and headed home to try my hand at making vegan sushi.
The first batch of rice came out too wet because I followed the directions on the package. I rarely follow directions or recipes -- I usually read them to get the general idea and then implement my own strategy. The second batch was perfect and so good and sticky that I tried an inside-out roll. I was feeling very Iron Chef. It came out reasonably well for a first attempt, but was not quite tight enough (photos below). Good rolls definitely take practice. Most things tasted so delicious -- I'm looking forward to practicing a lot!
The recipes I based these on can be found at the Post Punk Kitchen. I don't think I'll do the spicy tempeh roll again. I'm not a fan of tempeh, and I thought maybe it would be different with all the goodies blended into it. But next time I'm just going to use tofu. The Yamroom roll was also a bit lacking -- it needed a crunch, so maybe I'll add some cucumber next time. The Cali roll was hands-down my favorite, especially the second roll I made with the rice on the outside. I highly recommend giving this a shot -- it's tons of fun and not as hard as you think!
Goin' back to Cali Roll and Yamroom Roll.
Seaweed salad - my favorite part.
My clumsy attempt at an inside-out roll. Not bad for a first shot, I guess.
Elephant roll.
"Where the hell is the fish?"
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Those look delicious! I was just thinking yesterday about how neat it would be to learn how to make sushi. Maybe when I come to visit that's something we could do? Yum! What do you use in the Cali roll in place of crab? Tofu? I bet it's yum.