Category: Sushi

Categories
Maki Recipes

Unagi Roll

unagi roll

Unagi (eel) is a great way for non-fish eaters to make the transition to trying fish. It is eaten cooked and usually teriyaki flavored, and has a subtle fish flavor.

This is one of the more traditional rolls that can be found in most sushi restaurants. Unagi can be found frozen at Japanese supermarkets.

Unagi Roll

Makes 6 rolls, or 36-48 pieces.

Ingredients
Cooking Directions
  1. Cook sushi rice.
  2. Cook the unagi according to the package.
  3. Wash the cucumber and slice into long thin strips.
  4. Slice the unagi into long thin strips.
  5. Roll the sushi, using cucumber and unagi as your fillings.
  6. Serve with shoyu, wasabi, and ginger if desired. Enjoy!

Categories
Maki Recipes

American Roll

american roll

This roll is pretty much a California Roll with the addition of shrimp. (Because obviously California plus shrimp equals America. Who knows how they came up with that one? I have no idea… I just make the sushi!)

This makes the roll seem a little more elegant(something you can serve to “polite company”?)

I got this roll from the Sushi Chart.

Makes 6 rolls, or 36-48 pieces.

Ingredients
Cooking Directions
  1. Cook sushi rice.
  2. Slice the avocado and cucumber into long, thin slices.
  3. Mix the imitation crab and mayonnaise, separating the crab pieces into flakes.
  4. Roll the sushi, using avocado, cucumber, imitation crab, and shrimp as your fillings.
  5. Serve with shoyu, wasabi, and ginger if desired. Even better, serve with cocktail sauce as you would a shrimp cocktail!

Categories
Other Recipes

Fried Rice Inari


Fried Rice Inari-Zushi

This is a more complicated take on plain inari sushi.


Fried Rice Inari-Zushi

Son likes to make this fried rice for me occasionally (this is the only thing he ever cooks for me) so we thought we would put it into inari and see how it turned out! Well, it turned out tasting pretty good, so now we share it with you!


Fried Rice Inari-Zushi

Ingredients
Cooking Directions

Cook the rice. (I use a rice cooker, you can cook it in a pan if you prefer)

Dice the onion into small pieces.

Slice the sausages into thin slices.


Slicing the Chinese sausages

Cut off the tails of the shrimp and cut the shrimp into thirds.


Cutting the shrimp into thirds

Break the eggs into a bowl, and whisk until smooth.


Whisk the eggs until smooth

Chop the green onions. (I just use scissors to cut them into small bits)

Once the rice is done cooking, sauté the diced onions (not the green onions) with the butter in a large frying pan.


Put the onions in the frying pan...


... and saute with butter

Put the sliced sausages in the pan and let cook for about 10 minutes, or until they start to brown. Occasionally stir, so the sausage cooks evenly.


Pour the sausages in the pan...


...and stir

Pour in the chopped shrimp, and let cook until it begins to turn opaque.


Pour in the chopped shrimp...


... and mix into the onions and sausage

Mix in the rice, stirring so it is distributed evenly throughout the pan.


Put the rice into the pan


Mix the rice into the other ingredients

Pour about 2 tbsp shoyu into the pan (more if you want it saltier, less if you prefer a lower salt intake). Stir.


Pour the shoyu into the pan

Pour the whisked eggs into the pan, stirring so everything is coated with egg. Let cook while stirring for about 5 minutes.


Pour the egg into the fried rice


Mix the egg into the fried rice

Pour the chopped green onions in. Stir so they are evenly spread about the fried rice.


Put the green onion in the fried rice


Mix in the green onion

Make the inari sushi, using the fried rice instead of sumeshi.

Eat! You can eat them plain, with shoyu, or with Siracha hot sauce!.

Categories
Maki Recipes

Stoplight Roll

stoplight roll

This roll is called a stoplight roll because wouldn’t you know it… it looks like a stoplight! The reddish color of the imitation crab, the yellow of the tamago, and the green of the avocado stack up nicely to look like a stoplight (not to mention having an ever so delicious taste!)

Stoplight Roll

Speaking of which, everyone please be very careful driving now that (at least here) the wet winter season has started! Actually, be careful driving all the time… believe me, car accidents are no fun! I most certainly wouldn’t want to hear of anything bad happening to any of my dear readers!

Stoplight Roll

I found this roll on the Sushi Chart website.

Makes 6 rolls, or 36-48 pieces.

Stoplight Roll wrapped in tamago

Stoplight Roll

Ingredients
Cooking Directions
  1. Cook sushi rice and tamago.
  2. Slice the tamago into thin strips, about 1/2 inch wide.
  3. Cut avocado into thin sticks, about 1/2 cm wide.
  4. Roll the sushi, using avocado, tamago, and imitation crab as your fillings. Place the avocado on the bottom, then the tamago, then the imitation crab on the top (like a traffic light).
  5. Alternately, you could roll the sushi inside-out with the same fillings, then wrap it with a layer of tamago.
  6. Serve with shoyu, wasabi, and ginger if desired. Enjoy!

Categories
Maki Recipes

Using Thanksgiving Leftovers


Thanksgiving roll

Now that turkey day is over, I’m sure you have lots of leftovers! Many of you are looking for fun and tasty new ways to use your boring old leftovers… So, as promised, here are a few ways to use all those leftovers.


Turkey and cranberry sauce roll

The first roll that we made used turkey and cranberry sauce as its ingredients. A bit on the sweeter side, this is a good one for kids. Son thought it tasted a little like PB&J, just because of the sweet fruity taste.


Turkey and candied yam roll

Our second roll was a mix of turkey and candied yams. Not as sweet as the cranberry sauce roll, this was probably our least favorite out of all the rolls, but it was still good! It tasted potato-y, so those of you who don’t like mixing starches (you know who you are) might not like this one.


Turkey and stuffing roll

The third roll that we tried making used turkey and stuffing (yes, all of the rolls use turkey!).


Turkey and stuffing roll

This one was salty (which meant Son LOVED it!) and a pretty good combination.


Turkey and stuffing roll

Our last roll was our favorite. It used all of the leftovers that we had (turkey, stuffing, candied yams, and cranberry sauce). We didn’t have any mashed potatoes, gravy, or green bean casserole left, so we couldn’t use those. (I don’t think mashed potatoes would have worked too well – they’re too mushy.) This roll was really good – kinda like a whole Thanksgiving feast having a party in your mouth. Yum yum yum!


Thanksgiving roll

Since we only had a limited amount of leftovers (my mom only let me steal so much!) these are the only rolls that we could make, but of course, the possibilities are limitless! Let me know what kind of concoctions you came up with to use up your Thanksgiving leftovers… since I’m sure you had different kinds of leftovers than I did! Let me know the good, the bad, the completely weird… I can’t wait to hear all about it!


Thanksgiving roll

Categories
Maki Recipes

Dinner Roll


Dinner Roll

Sausage and potatoes. Sounds like a completely normal dinner, but would that really taste that great in sushi? Well, we tried it, and it does! But you ask, how did we come up with this? Leftovers! (Which is, by the way, a GREAT way to come up with sushi ideas!)


Dinner Roll

A couple of months ago, I had applied for a free sample of the potato skillet thing from Betty Crocker… after which I completely forgot about them. Then a couple of weeks ago, my free sample arrived in the mail! I bought these cute little mini sausages at the grocery store. I had made the potatoes the night before, so put them both together, and yum yum yum!


Dinner Roll

Makes 6 rolls, or 36-48 pieces.

Ingredients
Cooking Directions
  1. Cook sushi rice.
  2. Cook the potatoes, according to the directions on the box.
  3. Roll the sushi, using about 1/3 cup potatoes, 1 stalk of green onion, and 4 sausages as your fillings.
  4. Serve with ketchup (or whatever you prefer with your sausages and potatoes). Enjoy!
Categories
Nigiri Recipes

Tamago Nigiri

tamago nigiri

Tamago nigiri may not be the fanciest sushi out there, but it can be found at most sushi places.

It’s so easy to make, you could fry up some bacon and eat tamago nigiri for breakfast! (I bet we all know what I’m making for breakfast tomorrow!)

Makes about 5-6 pieces.

Ingredients
Cooking Directions
  1. Cook sushi rice.
  2. Cook the tamago.
  3. Using either your hands or a rice mold, form the rice into 5 or 6 small oblong balls.
  4. Cut the tamago into 1/2″ slices.
  5. Place the piece of tamago on top of the rice ball. You may place a small dab of wasabi on the underside of the tamago if you wish.
  6. Cut nori into 1 cm wide strips.
  7. Wrap 1 strip of nori around each piece of nigiri, cutting it to fit. Wrap it tightly enough that the nigiri won’t fall apart, but not so tight as to tear the tamago or cause the rice ball to come apart.
  8. Serve with shoyu, wasabi, and ginger if desired. Enjoy!

Categories
Other Recipes

How to Make Usuyaki Tamago

tamago

Tamago is the Japanese name for a sweet egg omelet. This omelet can be used in maki and on nigiri sushi. The only problem is that the tamago is so good that once you try some, there might not be any left to make sushi with! This isn’t exactly a traditional recipe. Instead, this is how my mom used to always make it, so it might be a little different than what you find in sushi restaurants.

Makes 1 omelet.

Usuyaki Tamago

Ingredients
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • 1/2 tsp shoyu
Cooking Directions

Crack the eggs into a bowl. Using a whisk or a fork, whisk the eggs until smooth.


Whisking the eggs

Stir in the sugar and shoyu, stirring until thoroughly mixed in.


Pouring sugar into the egg


Pouring shoyu into the egg

Heat a frying pan at medium heat.

Melt about 1/2 tbsp butter in the pan, spreading it so the bottom of the pan is completely covered.

Pour the egg mix into the pan.


Pouring the egg mix into the pan

When the egg looks opaque and you can get a spatula under it without tearing the omelet, flip the omelet.


Cooking the tomago

When the omelet is coked through (you can lift the omelet with the spatula to check underneath), remove the omelet from the pan.


Tamago removed from the pan

Slice into thin strips. The width of these strips depends on what you are using the tamago for – for tamago nigiri, cut them into 1.5″ x 2.5″ strips, to use in maki cut into 1 cm strips.


Cutting the tomago into strips


Done and ready to use on nigiri!

Categories
Maki Recipes

Philadelphia Roll

philadelphia roll

I first tried this roll at a sushi restaurant called Maki Maki, although it can probably be found at most sushi restaurants. Son took me there last year for my birthday, and we have been stopping by every time we are in the area ever since.

We almost always get the Philadelphia Roll when we go there, since it’s a very smooth, creamy roll. I believe that the roll gets its name from the cream cheese, as Philadelphia cream cheese is a popular choice. So yummy!

philadelphia roll

Makes 36-48 pieces.

Ingredients
Cooking Directions
  1. Cook sushi rice.
  2. Slice the smoked salmon into thin strips, about 1/2 inch wide.
  3. Cut cream cheese into thin sticks, about 1 cm wide.
  4. Roll the sushi, using smoked salmon, and cream cheese as your fillings.
  5. Serve with shoyu, wasabi, green onion, and ginger if desired. Enjoy!