Saturday Night Sushi Class

Saturday night my friend Cori had a sushi making class get together. Ray and I and several of our friends went to the class. Cori had the talented Viet, who is a professor at the Art Institute, teach us how to make sushi. Now, he made it easy on us. He had already prepared the rice and chopped everything for us! He discussed that with the rice, it’s definitely better to have it be overcooked instead of undercooked.

Ray had previously made sushi, but I didn’t really have experience with it (aside from eating it!). However, when we lived in California and had access to a great fish market, we used to often make sashimi. We even have a ‘How to Make Sushi’ book.

We started with our cutting boards, rolling mats, a piece of seaweed, and about a baseball size lump of rice. We also had bowls of water and a knife. The trick with the rice and getting it to spread evenly on the seaweed is to keep your hands wet so that you can spread it out. It’s easier to push the rice up and pull the rice down if your hands are wet. It’s really important to keep your hands wet, because then the rice is easy to work with. If your hands are dry, it sticks.

After you have the rice evenly on the sushi, you need to flip it over. Then you put your sushi ‘stuffing’ into the center of the seaweed strip. I used cucumber, krab and avocado for mine.

The trick to rolling is to pull the seaweed down to about 1 inch above the mat, then roll it over so that the sides of the seaweed touch, using the mat to tighten it, sort of like if you were creating a burrito.

To cut the roll, you use a sawing motion and cut it in half. Then you place the two halves next to each other and saw through them. Then you continue cutting until your have all your pieces cut.

Here I am enjoying another roll that I made. We practiced a few different types of rolls and ingredients, including hand rolls and cream cheese. It was so good! (Also, I have no idea why but I swear Ray is always cutting off either the top of my head or my feet in pictures. LOL).

Trust me when I say it’s great to take a class like this with friends from someone who is a talented teacher. Learning all the extra tips that they don’t mention in the book that we have really helped. Ray was able to roll flawlessly. My ends still need work.

Have you ever taken a sushi making class? What about a cooking class? Let me know in the comments below!