It’s strange. It’s never occurred to me to try my hand at making sushi despite it being a staple food I buy when I don’t have time to cook. I have made onigiri before to great success but never its more elegant sister, the maki roll. It’s a combination of factors that draw me away from making the maki: 1) I don’t have a bamboo mat. 2) Rolling sushi seems to be an art form that should be left to the professionals. 3) What if I screw up somewhere?

But one becomes brave enough to take a whack at making sushi when one spends too much on ASOS. If like me, you’ve fallen on hard times but aren’t willing to give up on your weekly Japanese dinners – I bring you THE NON-DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO MAKING SUSHI /o/

You should only use medium or short-grain rice to make sushi. Long-grain or the ever popular Singaporean favourites, jasmine and basmati rice, should not be used at all! They aren’t starchy enough to hold up the shape of the sushi.

Sushi vinegar
The recommended ratio for sushi vinegar is 5 parts rice vinegar: 2 parts sugar: 1 part salt (I used a tad more sugar tho)

Whisk the rice vinegar, sugar and salt in a bowl until everything has dissolved. I made a huge batch and stored in the fridge for future FOREVER ALONE sushi parties. I can’t say how much sushi vinegar you should put in your cooked rice because it depends entirely on your concoction and the amount of rice you’ve got. I eyeballed my measurements as per usual which on most days works pretty well but the universe decided my overconfidence towards cooking needed a shake-up so I ended up adding a little too much vinegar to my rice. Bleh ._.

Thankfully I discovered this was easily remedied by adding a few tablespoons of water to the rice. Of course as I type this, I can already imagine the many Japanese sushi chefs sharpening their knives, ready to make sashimi out of me for smearing their craft. The big deal? Well, you’re not supposed to add too much liquid to the sushi rice or it’ll get too sticky, making it hard to work with. But whatever man, as explicitly stated in my title this is totally not the real way to make sushi ;p Plus: sticky rice >>>> sour rice. Yep, I am clearly not striving for perfection LOL.

Rolling without a bamboo mat.

Honestly, after coming up with my method of rolling makis without the prerequisite bamboo mat – I don’t think I’ll ever invest in one haha! It’s just so easy to do it this way, this might actually be the start of a new way of making maki rolls 8D All you have to do is leave a gap at both ends of the seaweed square as seen in the first photo (when making rolls with a bamboo mat, one only leaves a gap at one end) and you can start rolling! Just tuck in the clean edge of the seaweed in and rollllll bb. Ah, I desperately wanted to make a lame joke about a particular Adele song but I shall refrain from doing so.

Cut your roll!
Take a very sharp knife, wet it to ensure the rice doesn’t stick to the steel and trim off the edges. Then simply cut your roll into pretty maki circles!

VOILA! My spicy salmon, avocado and furikake maki roll!

Best served with some awesome raspberry lemonade, of course. Get some rice, rice vinegar, seaweed squares, your filling of choice and start making your own maki rolls! It’s really not that hard as long as you don’t try to sell them 8D

I haven’t been here in more than a month, omg. I just got a little caught up with my mid-terms, such a killer D: I have missed this blog terribly though, hopefully no one’s thought I’ve abandoned it. But I’m sure you guys are used to my disappearing acts, non? ;p They’re not pleasant but it’s something I have to do when school morphs into a clingy, possessive boyfriend. Anyway, I’m not feeling well so I’m going to cut this entry short. Good night and stay safe, everyone! x

P.S In other news, my bff got invited to the exclusive Louis Vuitton opening preview party at their new Maison store at the Marina Bay Sands, SO JEALOUS OMFG WHAT IS THIS. Read about it on his blog here! Admittedly, I am not a die-hard LV fan like he is but that’s a place I’d love to check out when I fly back in December!

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