Lox Sushi

Another nice piece of sushi rolling from one of my students

Last "recipe" from this week's class: hand rolls stuffed with smoked salmon, cream cheese, and typical bagel & lox condiments. We used capers but you could use thinly sliced red onions, strips of cucumber, diced tomatoes, or diced avocado. Use what you have, use what you like.

You can find instructions on how to make a hand roll in the tuna poke post. You can find instructions on making a sushi roll like the one in the photo all over youtube. I like this succinct video best but you don't need to wrap the roll in plastic to cut it. Make sure to dampen your sharp knife before each cut and wipe off the blade after each cut.

To make a lox roll, you'll need:

• thin strips of smoked salmon
• small sticks of cream cheese (see below on how to cut it) 
• sushi rice
• sheets of nori
• toasted sesame seeds

Beyond these, you will want one or more tasty accompaniments:

• capers
• thinly sliced strips of red onion
• strips of cucumbers (peeled if you like and seeded if not an English cucumber)
• diced avocado
• diced tomato
• strips of pickled jalapeño (not traditional but very tasty)

It can be hard to cut up cream cheese. It's very sticky. The trick is to slightly freeze it before trying to cut it. Put a chunk of cream cheese in the freezer for 20 minutes before you want to cut it. If it softens up while you are trying to cut it, stick it back in the freezer for a few minutes and try again. Also, don't try to use reduced-fat cream cheese; it's much too soft and sticky to cut. 

Making Sushi: Tuna Poke Rolls

Poke and smoked salmon sushi by one of my students. These kids do good work!

We are rolling some rice tonight. My college students are making sushi. One of the great things about sushi: you can use your imagination to combine ingredients to make a roll that is tasty to you. Since we're on a budget in these classes, we need to stretch expensive ingredients. High quality fish is not cheap, so sushi rolls are a great way to make things like ahi tuna go further. We made up a tuna poke (po-key), which is Hawaii's version of tuna sashimi. It's often served on fried wonton chips but here we rolled it inside a sushi roll.

How do you get high quality ahi tuna? Use you nose. It should smell like fresh mild meat, with no fishy odor. It has a  minerally whiff of the sea, but that's it. Not strong at all. Almost all ahi is flash-frozen at sea, so don't be deterred by frozen ahi. If you buy it still frozen, you'll know that it had no chance to degrade on its way to you. It's easier to dice the tuna when it is still slightly frozen, so don't defrost it totally before starting the poke.

Tuna Poke Rolls
(makes about 12-16 rolls, depending on how much tuna you stuff in each)

12 oz. ahi tuna, finely diced (it's easier to dice if partially frozen)
3 scallions, thinly sliced
½ Tablespoon minced fresh ginger
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons Asian sesame oil
a pinch or two of salt
1 Tablespoon toasted sesame seeds

1 batch sushi rice
nori sheets, 4"-5" high by 7" long (about ½ a sheet)

Possible poke enhancements:

• diced or sliced avocado
• sliced cucumber
• mayonnaise
• wasabi paste

The poke is great on its own in a roll, but any of these things will make it even better.

The simplest roll is a hand roll, a sushi cone! The trick with sushi rice is work with moistened hands. Sushi rice is really, really sticky. But, if you moisten your hands before grabbing and spreading the rice on the nori, it won't stick to your hands. When you put the rice down on the nori, don't press is down too much. Lightly press it with your fingertips so you don't smash the rice kernels.

Here's what it looks like filled but before rolling up. You'll need about 3 Tablespoons rice.

To roll, bring the bottom left corner up to the upper middle edge, where the rice ends. The top of the cone is the upper left corner.

The roll, turned around. To seal the bottom, you roll the naked nori over the stuffed side.

To finish, moisten the naked nori slightly and fold it around the bottom of the cone. Then eat! No fork required.

Dahlia enjoying her poke roll

Sushi Rice

Class this week is simple sushi. Sushi is about the rice, spiked with a little bit of rice vinegar,  sugar, and salt. It's important to use a rice that says "sushi rice" on the bag. Some common brands are Calrose,  Kokuho Rose, or Nishiki. Sushi rice has enough soluble starch to stick together. No one wants a hand roll that self-destructs before you get it to your mouth. It's also important to rinse sushi rice well because it is coated in starch when packaged, but this starch is supposed to be removed before cooking.

You can buy sushi vinegar - rice vinegar premixed with sugar and salt. But, you can easily make your own. I have discovered sushi vinegar is easier to find in supermarkets than natural rice vinegar - the vinegar without the salt and sugar - so don't fret too much if you have to use the premixed variety. There is also lots of variation in the proportion of vinegar, sugar, and salt to rice in homemade recipes. This recipe is a proportion that I found tasty but it isn't the only way to mix it. It's more tart than sweet and not very salty.

The rice is cooked, then the sushi vinegar is sprinkled over the hot rice and mixed so that every grain is coated with vinegar. This also cools down the rice. To speed the cooling, you can fan the rice. If you are coordinated, you can mix while you fan but it works if you alternate mixing with fanning. Or you can enlist a friend to fan while you mix. Sushi is a great dish for a party, after all, so get your friends to help you.

You want the rice to be at room temperature when you roll it up. You can make it a few hours ahead but don't refrigerate it. It will get too hard and crunchy if it's cold.

Sushi Rice
(makes about 3 cups of rice)

1 cup raw sushi rice
1 ¼ cup water
¼ cup sushi vinegar

Rinse the sushi rice well with cold water until the water runs clear. Let the rice sit for 30 minutes. Place the rice in a medium saucepan and add water. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring gently until it boils. Once the water reaches a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to steam for 5 minutes. Gently spoon into a large bowl (wood is traditional, but plastic or glass will do) and sprinkle on frac12; of the vinegar. Gently mix and fan until all the liquid has been absorbed. Add the rest of the vinegar, and continue to mix and fan until all the liquid is absorbed and the rice is cooled to room temperature. If you aren't ready to roll the sushi , you can cover the rice with a damp towel (to keep it from drying out) and let it sit at room temperature for up to 3 hours.

Sushi Vinegar
(makes 1 cup)
1 cup natural rice vinegar
3 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon salt

Combine vinegar, sugar, and salt in a small saucepan. Heat until sugar and salt dissolve. Let cool before using. Leftovers can be stored in the refrigerator for about 1 month.

Next Class: Sushi

Peterjhpark at en.wikipedia [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0), from Wikimedia Commons

Doing a bit of research for my next class. My University of Colorado students requested sushi. We probably won't have raw fish but we will make this recipe. No raw fish, though technically, smoked salmon is raw because it's cold smoked. It's bagels and lox in Japan without the bagel. To make it more like bagels and lox, I'll use capers instead of pickled jalapeños (though the pickled jalapeños sound interesting too).

Still working on other recipes for easy sushi. Anyone have any ideas they want to share?