I used to think that I did not like sushi but I was totally wrong about myself. I have become a sushi-holic just like my boyfriend. We always love spending a dinner out in some Japanese restaurant and we ate so much that we felt like sumo’s after the meal. Thus I tried making some sushi nights at home, I made different types of sushi, sushi maki’s and also made ginger pickle once (now I don’t bother making them as it’s too much work and just isn’t worth it. You know you can buy a whole bag of …uh like 1kg of ginger pickle in any Asian store. However, making sushi and maki at home is another thing, which is really fun <3

Preparing sushi rice plays the most important role in making delicious maki rolls or even sushi (besides the quality of fish that you bought).

For two persons, you just need around 1 cup or maximum a cup and a half of sushi rice if you are really big sushi consumers like us. The best is to follow the cooking instruction on your sushi rice bag. But some sushi rice company doesn’t really give you an instruction, in which case, you could just use one and a half amount of the rice that you cook. For example: a cup of rice needs a cup and a half of water. It is told that the rice quality is much improved if you use bottled water, which I find a bit perplexed as I do not think chefs in a popular restaurant ever use bottled water for your rice and theirs sushi remain delicious enough to make you come back there again and again. Another tip is to soak the rice 30 minutes before cooking, use a rice cooker is the most simple thing to do.

While rice is there, prepare the mixture to add to your sushi rice, which includes: vinegar (mizkan), sugar, salt, a bit of mirin and sake (I always use dry white wine that what we tend to always have in our kitchen). Simply put them in a microwave for around 1minute or so to make it boil and to dissolve sugar.

Mixing the above mixture to your rice in front of a running fan to dry out a bit the rice and give your rice a shining look, then cover the bowl of rice with a damp cloth let it cool.

Let roll your maki or sushi and serve with ginger pickle, soya sauce and lots of wasabi!

We always love making sushi with salmon, tuna, eel, avocado, cucumber, crabstick, Japanese omlette. But really you can really be very creative with any fillings, I once tried sushi with mango on top :))

Those were made for my younger sister’s excursion, cannot remember when. Might be in 2008 or even before that.

Our first home-made sushi night together: I tried making ginger pickle,  inside-out maki, sesame maki and so forth, I really like those!

For those who are not fond of eating raw fish, you can make a Korean version of the sushi, “GIMBAB”, which is filled with Korean kimchi (chinese cabbage pickle), Korean sausage, fried egg, cucumber and carrot…. or as mentioned above, just which ever ingredients that you are thinking of.