Special Dinner
It has been said that variety is the spice of life. For the past eighteen years I have made a habit of trying one or two new recipes each week. The winners get recorded in my recipe book of fame and the less interesting recipes get...forgotten.
One of the meals that we really like is the "event meal"; fondue or raclette would be a good example. One day Joerg suggested that we should try making our own sushi. Our date night meal is often a local sushi restaurant that we really like, but it can be costly. I never thought of trying it at home because finding super-fresh, sushimi-grade fish around here can be a challenge. Some things I had to order in the internet, but most of the ingredients I was able to find at local stores. It was a great first attempt.
So there are three major types of "sushi". There is the very common maki which is a roll made up of nori (sea weed paper...that's the black sheet that holds all the ingredients together), rice, and a few chosen flavors to roll inside. We used things like cucumber, cream cheese, mango, crab meat, avocado, salmon, and tuna.
Then there is sushi and sashimi. Sushi is a piece of fish on a ball of rice, whereas sashimi is simply the fish. We did both. I served salmon and tuna, and we enjoyed eating them with and without the ball of rice. Nobody left the table hungry.
I had a few leftovers, but we managed to use all of them the following night. Katherine wasn't as keen on the sushi as the rest of us, but not because of the raw fish (she actually likes salmon). Her only complaint was that she doesn't like the sea weed paper (nori) used to wrap the maki rolls; so she didn't go hungry. The more sushi we ate the more Patrick enjoyed it. And I found that the more rolls I made the better I got with it. The videos make it look so easy, but it turns out that if you don't roll it tightly the ingredients on the inside will just slide out, or - more annoying - squoosh out when you cut the roll. It's definitely a skill that has to be developed.
Now that I know where to go for super fresh sushi-quality fish, we'll probably do this again. Next time I'll introduce more sauces and make more rice so Katherine can have as much sushi as she wants while the rest of us make maki.
One of the meals that we really like is the "event meal"; fondue or raclette would be a good example. One day Joerg suggested that we should try making our own sushi. Our date night meal is often a local sushi restaurant that we really like, but it can be costly. I never thought of trying it at home because finding super-fresh, sushimi-grade fish around here can be a challenge. Some things I had to order in the internet, but most of the ingredients I was able to find at local stores. It was a great first attempt.
So there are three major types of "sushi". There is the very common maki which is a roll made up of nori (sea weed paper...that's the black sheet that holds all the ingredients together), rice, and a few chosen flavors to roll inside. We used things like cucumber, cream cheese, mango, crab meat, avocado, salmon, and tuna.
Then there is sushi and sashimi. Sushi is a piece of fish on a ball of rice, whereas sashimi is simply the fish. We did both. I served salmon and tuna, and we enjoyed eating them with and without the ball of rice. Nobody left the table hungry.
Now that I know where to go for super fresh sushi-quality fish, we'll probably do this again. Next time I'll introduce more sauces and make more rice so Katherine can have as much sushi as she wants while the rest of us make maki.
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