My daughter’s very good friend is half Japanese and my daughter is half Chinese. I’m fond of Asian cuisine and especially being a Chinese medicine practitioner, I’m extra keen on food from Asia. My daughter loves sushi and so I mentioned one day how I’d love to learn to make it. My daughter’s friend’s mum offered to teach me… and as they say, the rest is history.

Thank you Ritsuko Chuter! This sushi lesson was a wonderful experience and my daughter gave me the thumbs up when I made it for her for school lunch, which says a lot as she’s picky about Asian food – you must be a good teacher!

I love learning how to made food the traditional way. Love getting the thumbs up from family and then I like changing it up a bit to see what I can get away with.

I’ve listed below exactly what Ritsuko taught me during my lesson. Then I tried it myself with my own twist – I used coconut sugar as it has more nutrients and I’d prefer that for my daughter over white sugar. She was fine with it. In future I could try Xylitol or even Stevia – that will be my next step.

The term sushi actually means vinegared rice. The dish was originally inspired from the use of fermented rice to store fish. Here’s how we made it together. (Determine the quantities to suit your needs.)

Ingredients

Rice:

Sushi rice

Sushi vinegar (Or make your own mix if you’d prefer to control the amount/type of sweetener: rice vinegar, salt and sugar – see recipe step 2 for details)

Filling:

Cucumber

Tuna in spring water

Mayo

Sashimi salmon

Avocado

Casing:

Nori flat seaweed sheets

Bamboo mat for rolling sushi

Instructions

1. Cook rice

Before you do anything else, have the rice already cooking as this will take the longest time. Choose the absorption method either on your stove top or in a rice cooker.

Rinse 3 cups of raw rice with running water until the water runs clear. Then add 4.5 cups of water to your rice cooker or saucepan with the washed rice. Bring the water to the boil, then reduce to a simmer until all the water has evaporated or been absorbed. The time it takes will depend on your rice cooker. On the stove top it should take roughly 10 minutes.

2. Make sushi vinegar

   (If you’re not using a ready-made brand)

Use 6 parts vinegar to 4 parts sugar to 1 part salt. Mix it all up until dissolved. (With 10 cups of rice we used 12 tsp vinegar, 8 tsp sugar and 2 tsp salt.)

3. Season rice with vinegar

Transfer your rice to another bowl and mix with 5 Tbsp of sushi vinegar. Fan the rice as you mix it so that it cools rapidly. Once the rice is cool enough to touch, mix gently with your fingers as this helps separate the grains and not crush them so much. Keep fanning and mixing until cool (this can take a while!).

4. Make your fillings

TUNA – Remove the tuna from the spring water (we used a 400g tin) and add 6 tsp of mayonnaise. You don’t want it too soft nor too firm. It needs to stay together easily. Mix together and set aside.

AVOCADO – Cut it into strips ready to insert into your nori roll.

CUCUMBER – Cut into thin long strips.

SASHIMI SALMON – Cut into thin long strips.

5. Prep time

Place the rounded side of the sushi mat on the table and the flat side up facing you. Place your nori sheet on top of the mat. The shiny side of the nori sheet should face down and the rough side should face up toward you. Bring the nori sheet to the bottom edge of the sushi mat.

6. Spread the rice

Grab a small bowl and fill it with water. Dip your fingers in, then take some rice and spread a thin even layer over the nori sheet, leaving a one-inch strip at the top with no rice.

7. Topping time

Place your topping in the middle: either tuna only, salmon only, a mix of tuna with cucumber or avocado, or the same mix with the salmon.

8. You’re ready to roll

Don’t push or squash as you roll but hold the nori towards the bottom edge of the sushi mat. Pat down the filling a bit if you need and then roll the first half of your nori roll. Pause and squeeze it gently into its tube shape, then complete the roll.

Simply remove the bamboo mat and add your roll to a plate to rest it. Gradually the seaweed will absorb the moisture and you don’t need to do anything else – that’s it!

9. Repeat with remaining rice and different fillings

10. Cutting time

Once you’re done and your rolls have been resting for a while, you can start to cut. Dip a sharp knife in some water, get rid of the excess water and gently slice with a sawing motion.

Voila – you have made your own sushi – now doesn’t that look gorgeous! It tastes good too :)

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