Sushi 101: Roll Your Own (Catch-Up pt. 2)

Wednesday night after Habitat, I went to Whole Foods in Mount Washington to take a FREE class in Sushi. The class was put on by Genji's community group. We got a Sushi 101 book that has step-by-step instructions for making your own rolls, but also has sections about terminology, recipes and other how-to sections (use chopsticks). There were about a dozen people there and the guys running the class seemed to think several didn't come because of the bad weather (a girl in our group didn't make it because the weather caused too much traffic).

The class started with a simple avocado roll. We were instructed to take a piece of nori (toasted seaweed) and place it on the mat with the shiny side down. Then we took an egg-sized ball of rice and spread it over the nori, leaving about a finger width at the top:



The chef told us to take 4 of the slivers of avocado and place it length-wise on the rice, closer to the fully-covered end (I only used 2 pieces to make it easier to roll, since it was my first time):



From here, we'll have to go with text only until the finished product (this is from my head because I don't have the book they gave us handy):

• Slide the nori to the end of the mat closest to you
• Grab under the mat with your thumbs and just past the avocado with your fingers
• Roll the mat (and nori) over the avocado, using your fingers to keep it from being pushed
• Once you have it rolled, squeeze the mat lightly
• Unrolled the mat and reposition the roll so the uncovered (by rice) nori is on the bottom
• Wrap the mat around the roll again and use your hands to form it into a square shape
• Unwrap and cut

I found some pretty good step-by-step pictures on flickr if you go through the photostream.

The class was great and would have been worth paying for. At the end, we got the free Sushi 101 book, a free mat and 4 free rolls (the we made ourselves). The 4 rolls included an avocado roll, cucumber roll, avocado and cucumber inside-out roll and a California inside-out roll. I definitely recommend this class for anyone that likes sushi.


An inside-out California Roll