Sushi II

Dana - this one's for you!

I thought about documenting our process of making sushi as we went along, but seriously, can anyone do that better than the Pioneer Woman? Lucky for us, she has sushi 101 on her blog already! I read through it and those step by step directions were exactly what we did. Once we got our first "trial and error" rolls out of the way, we moved right along and had the following 4 done in less than 10 minutes.

The only thing that she doesn't include in her tutorial is how to make rice on the stove. I've heard that you really NEED a rice cooker in order to make rice properly, but I'm always hesitant to add an appliance or gadget to my tiny little kitchen that serves only 1 purpose if something I already have can do the same thing. Enter my 3 quart pot.

Our Sushi for Dummies cookbook assured us that we could get fine results cooking on the stove top, so we followed those steps and came out with PERFECT rice.

• Selecting the rice - you need short or medium grain rice (the same as if you were using a rice cooker). Pretty much if you buy rice that's labeled "sushi rice" you're fine. (We found ours in the international aisle at Harris Teeter. I've heard you can get it cheaper from an Asian market.)
• Decide how much rice you're going to cook. 2 level cups of uncooked rice produces 5-6 cups cooked rice which is enough for about 6 rolls. We made 3 cups and that was waaaay too much for just us.
• Choose your pot. For 2 cups raw rice, use a 2-quart pot; 3 cups, a 3-quart pot, etc, etc.
  
• Put the rice into the pot and rinse (cover the rice with cold water and gently swirl the rice around with your hand) several times until the water drains almost clear.
• Soak the rice. For every cup of raw rice, add 1 cup of water. Set the pot aside and let soak for 30 minutes.
• Cook the rice! Put a lid on the pot, place on medium heat and bring to a bowl. Once a boil is reached, turn down the heat and simmer for 15-20 min. After it simmers you'll "finish" the rice. Turn the heat down to it's lowest point for 5 minutes, then turn up the heat to the highest point for 7-10 SECONDS.
• Turn off the heat and let the rice rest for 15 minutes.
• Turn out the rice onto a cookie sheet, pour rice vinegar mixture over it (1/4 cup rice vinegar, 1 Tablespoon sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt) and toss with a moistened wooden spoon while fanning the rice (we used a small plastic cutting board) until there is no more steam coming off the rice.

And that's it . . . it seems a little intense now that I've written it out. A rice cooker may be the way to go, but I love hands on cooking and thought that the whole process was really fun. Especially since it turned out well! If that's not you, the pioneer woman has another post detailing how to cook the rice perfectly in a rice cooker.

Let me know if you try sushi and how it turns out!