Since my return from Vancouver, I have really missed sushi. You can buy sushi of decent quality here in St. John’s at three places (all on Duckworth St.), I have discovered; Basho (quite expensive, but a true dining experience, Asian Taste (quite good and not incredibly expensive) and Sun Sushi (variable quality and more expensive than Asian Taste, but nowhere near Basho in price).

Eating out is expensive and not something we wish to do all the time even if we could afford it. One of my “resolutions” (which I prefer to call “plans” since this word implies both more of a likelihood of success and a route through which to achieve the desired end) for this coming year was to learn to make sushi. I figured that this way we could reduce the price, custom-make the rolls to our tastes and dietary whims and possibly have a good bit of fun with friends.

This happened a little sooner than I thought it might!

Katherine spotted a recipe in a book I bought recently, Looneyspoons, called Obi Won-Ton Kenobi Soup and has been after me for some time to make it. I got the ingredients together and then one thing led to another and suddenly “won-ton soup for supper” became “won-ton soup with friends over for supper”, which spiralled into “we need more food to go with the won-ton soup with friends over for supper so let’s make sushi”.

Katherine helped out by making a kick-ass satay sauce and some rice paper vegetable rolls:

< Video to be inserted as soon as my camera will GIVE IT UP! (I’m not bitter) >

And then we (we= Tamar & Adam, Me, John and Katherine, and Jennifer and her three kids) made and ate sushi!

I chopped and prepped the rice, shrimp and veggies ahead of time. Mainly for my own records, we used the following for the sushi and veggie rolls:

• 500g of dried sushi rice (Only made half this to start and need to make the rest up half-way through. Oops.)
• 1 pkg nori
• 1/2 pound salmon
• 1/8 lb smoked salmon
• 20 prawns
• 2 mini cucumbers
• 2 red pepper
• 1/2 small nappa cabbage
• 1 avocado
• 3 tbps mayo
• 3 tsp Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce
• 3 tsp wasabi
• 1/2 bag bean sprouts
• 1/4 bag shredded carrots
• very small amount marinated tofu
• rice vinegar
• soy sauce
• approximately 30 rice papers*
• peanut butter
• hoisin sauce

I’m sure there were other bits and pieces, but those were the main things. We fed nine people to bursting and had left-overs enough for another two or three people easily. And it was amazingly good and a tonne of fun (note: wet hands are the key to spreading rice)! Definitely to be repeated. Especially since we now know what we’re doing. Sort of.

*Not only were the rice papers good for making the veggie rolls, but they also proved extremely handy for using up the last of the sushi ingredients. A must-have for next time!