Maki-zushi (Sushi rolls) Recipe

How to Make Maki-zushi (Sushi rolls)

 Let's Cook Japanese Food

Ingredients ( Serves 4 )

Sushi-meshi (vinegared rice) for 2 rolls (450 g)
・250 ml rice
・275 ml water
Seasoning for the rice
・2 tablespoons (30 ml) rice vinegar
・1½ tablespoons  sugar
・3/4 teaspoons (3g) salt

Tamago-yaki or a Japanese-style omelette
・2 eggs (weighing 120 g)
Seasonings
・1 tablespoon (9 g) sugar
・1 teaspoon (5 ml) soy sauce
・Pinch of salt    
・1 tablespoon (15 ml) water
・1 teaspoon vegetable oil

Simmered shiitake mushrooms
・9 small dried shiitake mushrooms (weighing 15 g total)
・1 cup (200 ml) water
Seasonings
・1 tablespoon (9 g) sugar      
・1 tablespoon (30 ml) soy sauce

Boiled prawn
・6 prawns (each weighing approx. 16 g, heads removed, but shells still attached; or use 4 large-sized prawns)
・1 cup water
・1 teaspoon (4 g) salt

Cucumber
・½ small cucumber (weighing 50 g)
・Pinch of salt

You will also need 2 sheets of nori seaweed.

 HOW TO COOK

1. Wash the rice, replacing the water 2-3 times; drain in a colander.
2. Soak the rice in water for 30 minutes.
3. Place rice in a lidded saucepan and bring to the boil over medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer for 12 minutes. Remove from heat, but leave the lid on the saucepan and allow rice to rest for 10 minutes.
4. Mix the seasonings for the rice. Warm the mixture if the sugar has trouble dissolving in it.
5. Place the cooked rice in a roomy bowl and quickly stir through the seasoned vinegar.
6. To prepare the Tamago-yaki, crack the eggs into a bowl and add the seasonings . Heat the vegetable oil in a small frying pan over medium heat. Add the egg mixture and stir until partially set; slide the mixture to one side of the pan and cook over low heat until set. Remove and cut into 1 cm thick slices.
7. Soak the shiitake mushrooms in water to reconstitute them. Remove the stems, and simmer in 1 cup of water in a lidded saucepan for 10 minutes over low heat. Add the seasonings. Reduce liquid until it turns syrupy. Allow mushrooms to cool in mixture. Squeeze out excess moisture, and slice into thin strips.
8. Devein the prawns and insert a bamboo skewer (or toothpick) along the length of the prawns. Simmer over low heat in 1 cup of water, to which 1 teaspoon of salt has been added, in a lidded saucepan for 2-3 minutes. Allow the prawns to cool in the water in which they were cooked. Remove the skewers and shell the prawns.
9. Cut the cucumber into 1 centimetre-sized sticks; sprinkle with salt, then pat off the excess moisture.
10. Divide the vinegared rice into two portions. Lay out a sheet of nori on a makisu (the small bamboo mat used for making sushi rolls). Spread out a portion of the rice evenly across the nori but leave a 4 cm gap on the tail end.
11. Lay the ingredients for the filling across the middle of the rice. Lift the top end of the mat and keeping your fingers on the ingredients, place it on the other end of the rice. Shape into a compact, relatively tight cylinder. Finish the cylinder by rolling it on the 4 cm gap of nori, which should be at the bottom. Cut into slices about 2.5 cm thick.

Sushi Rolls in Different Sizes and Varieties
The thicker rolls (known as futo-maki) can contain a blend of distinctive fillings, while more slender rolls (known as hoso-maki) are made with only one or two fixings. The thicker rolls are now and then wrapped in an egg omelet rather than nori, and the fillings are off and on again organized with the goal that they will look like a bloom when the roll is cut.

The more slender rolls contain a straightforward filling of fish, cucumber, natto(fermented soybeans), or ume-boshi(pickled plum), and so forth., and are frequently dipped and consumed with soy sauce.

Sushi restaurants outside of Japan have frequently thought of fascinating forms of the sushi roll, for example, a rendition containing crude fish, avocado, and mayonnaise, which have additionally ended up mainstream in Japan.