Happy mother's day!

    Hello everyone! Today is mother's day, and I couldn't be happier that the sushi I made for my Mom turned out well!

    For the rice, I washed it a few more times than before and let it soak in some cheesecloth for about 45 minutes before steaming, also adding less water than before. The result was plenty of perfect, fluffy rice! 

    I was embarassingly excited about how well it came out, and I made Mom and Laura come feast their eyes on its majesty. 

    I decided to make 3 rolls using some of the same ingredients as last time. This is the California roll I made for mom, with crab salad, avocado, and cucumber. She loved it, so I'd consider it a success. 

    For Laura, I made the same one as last week, with the new and improved rice. I also tried to step up my presentation game with some of my mom's mexican plates. You know, the ones that sit on a high shelf in a cabinet and never get used.

    Chef's gotta eat, too- I just kinda threw everything into my roll.

    All in all, it was a great sushi day and I love nothing more than to be able to share sushi with my family! 

I did shrooms. Also, rice fail.

   Hello again. I would call this a pretty bad sushi day but I will start with the positives.

    Remember when I said I wanted to get my hands on some shiitake mushrooms? Well, I did!

Shiitakes are a type of mushroom native to east asia, and they have a strong, earthy flavor. I did some research on them and decided I would sautée the shrooms in some sesame seed oil and soy sauce to give them an extra punch of flavor. They came out really, really yummy and packed with flavor!

 Next, I prepped the rest of my veggies (just avo & cucumber) for what I originally intended to be an all-veggie roll, but later decided to top with smoked salmon. 

    Everything's going great so far, right? I've washed my rice, prepped my veggies and all is well. WRONG! My rice came out SO BAD! Like, not just "okay, this is usable" bad, but I-had-to-throw-it-away bad. It was wierdly sticky/starchy and mixing it the correct way did little to improve its consistency. It was almost like a paste instead of individual grains. The only reason for this I could think of was that I used the remainder of the rice that came with my sushi kit that I bought in like August. I probably should have used the fresher rice! This was a HUGE disappointment considering how excited I was about this roll and how much time I spent doing research/prepping, but now I know to use fresher rice and maybe rinse it a few more times. 

    Despite the crappy rice, I threw together a roll and split it with my mom and sister. The flavors were excellent, but the consistency of the rice was very hard to get past. My family (my cheerleaders) were still excited to sample it. God bless 'em.

Conceptually, it was an awesome roll but Jiro hasn't even died yet and he's already rolling in his grave over that rice. Speaking of the rice, here's a picture of the rice on an upside-down spoon. 

Sushi rice is supposed to be sticky to an extent, but never that sticky, hahaha. Wish me better luck next time, friends! 

    

Solo California Roll

    Hey guys! Today marked my first attempt at making the California roll by myself (without the help of my Kampai friends). 

    I would say that this was a pretty successful session. One of the key reasons for this is that I discovered how relaxing and enjoyable it is to make sushi. I find that the many steps involved in the preparation each come with their own sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, which is pretty cool since I was first a little overwhelmed and impatient with all the steps a couple months ago. 

    So I guess you could say I was a bit spoiled at Kampai with all the accomodations of a fully functional sushi bar, but I found a way to make it work in my (small) kitchen. Here's my little setup, complete with rice cooker, cooked rice, prepped veggies, crab sticks, a bowl of water (for wetting hands when needed), and some other stuff (vinegar, soy sauce, knife) that aren't in the picture.

As you can see, I did a pretty okay job of spreading the rice onto a sheet of nori (seaweed), but I'll admit that it took me forever! Dealing with rice in general is still one of the trickier parts of sushi-making to me, and I'm still trying to figure out a good sushi-to-vinegar ratio.

    Well, here is the finished product (contains crab stick, avocado, and cucumber):

Spoiler: It never made it to an actual plate because I'm kind of lazy. There are also a few technical things that I still need to perfect such as rolling and cutting. It was, however, pretty darn tasty if I do say so myself. My Mom and sister also enjoyed it a lot which made me happy! I will definitely make a lot more rice next time, as I could only make 2 rolls with the amount I prepared. 

    All in all, this was a fun and delicious experience and I can't wait to make more next week and experiment with more ingredient combinations. I'd love to get my hands on some shiitake mushrooms! 

    A couple of side notes: 

1.) If anyone knows of a pandora station that plays relaxing, traditional japanese music, let me know in school because the station I found has a wierd mixture of soothing, tradional music and J-pop. It was a musical (and emotional) roller coaster. 

2.) Kim's Oriental shop on the vestal parkway is an awesome place to stop for indian and asian ingredients, they have all kinds of cool foods/spices. I got my crab sticks, nori, and toasted sesame seeds there. 

Kampai sushi chef for a day!

    Today, I had the awesome privilage of working with sushi bar chefs Andrew and Michael Matsushima at Kampai Japanese Steakhouse. First of all, I can't thank Mrs. Krieger enough for contacting Andrew (the Matsushimas and Kriegers are family friends) and setting the stage for this amazing opportunity. Second, I would like to recognize and thank the chefs, and chef in training, for generously taking time out of their busy work hours to work with me attentively and answer my many questions regarding their craft. 

Now for the details! 

I began by adorning myself with the proper attire for the job and taking a sneaky kitchen selfie.

Next, Andrew showed me the process of preparing the cooked rice. This involves a specific technique of a "slicing" motion with the giant rice paddle, which goes with the giant wooden bowl. The size of the bowl allows the rice to cool faster. 

    After preparing the rice, Andrew invited me to the serving area (sushi bar) where I watched him fill a couple orders, then he walked me through the process of making a california roll and I got to try my hand at it! Hardest part? Spreading the rice onto the nori (seaweed). As Andrew put it, "once rice starts sticking to your hands, it just goes downhill from there," which is why you have to wet them to prevent this.

Please feel free to expand this picture to figure out which is mine and which is Andrew's...lol. I also got to get rid of the evidence. Yum.

    The next project was a cucumber inside-out roll, which involves a slightly different technique and looks like this: 

Cutting the pieces evenly is also a skill that takes quite a few tries to perfect, hence my roll's resemblance to a city skyline. 

    I unfortunately can't upload the video from my phone, but I also got the official "cucumber slicing 101" course from the chef-in-training whose name I really don't want to butcher, but was pronounced "Long." He has been training at Kampai for about three weeks now and already cranks out some awesome Kampai-quality sushi.

    Michael said, and I quote, "yeah we would probably serve this" regarding my second try at the california roll, and Andrew agreed. Regardless of whether they were just being nice, I was PUMPED.

    While Andrew took care of some inventory, Michael coached me through a delicious tuna roll, which was probably my favorite thing to create and eat.

Please ignore the pesky avocado slice trying to escape from the corner piece.

    In short, I can honestly say that this was one of the coolest things I have done in my entire life. From the plethora of tips and tricks that Andrew and the others taught me, I think I'll be able to improve my sushi a lot and I can't wait to go out and get more ingredients. Again, thank you Mrs. Krieger and thank you Kampai staff for giving me this kickass opportunity. 

    I was also fortunate enough to meet the man who started it all, Richard Matsushima. He is pleasant, welcoming, and was happy to have me at his restaurant. He also went out of his way to have this picture taken!

From left: "Long," Michael Matsushima, some wierd kid, and Andrew Matsushima. All three chefs were incredibly helpful and accomodating toward me and made it an experience I'll never forget. 

    I wish I could have fit every little detail into this blog post, but I hope you guys enjoyed it and that you'll go to Kampai soon and try some of their amazing food! 

Some additional pics: 

Myself and Andrew, also note the chalkboard behind me that I leaned up against and imprinted today's specials on my back.

"Yeah, we'd probably serve that." 

The staff was kind enough to send me home with two of my creations (left, top left), and a beautiful off-menu roll prepared by Michael. (right)

Some lovely "angel" rolls prepared by Andrew. Drool.

    

    

*Mini Post* Inspiration from a master sushi chef

Anyone else feel like this about Mondays? Jiro is referring to his whole life, now there's someone who's committed to their craft.

Landlocked Limitations

   One of the key components of sushi, in many cases, is raw fish. When consuming raw fish or serving it to others, it is very important that you make sure has been handled properly for use in sushi. Otherwise, you could be consuming parasites and other contaminants...ew. 

   As it turns out, to my...not so much surprise, but disappointment, sushi-grade fish is awfully hard to come by in this area. I checked a couple supermarkets only to find out that their fish is far from sushi-grade ("Do you carry sushi-grade salmon?" "What's that?"). With a bit of research, I learned that most of my favorite youtube sushi chefs order their fish online from reliable companies that ship their fresh fish vacuum packed in a couple days....and at a steep price. A 1 lb. fillet of sushi-grade salmon will set you back $23 plus shipping. I would like to be able to purchase this at some point, but in the meantime I'll practice using non-raw meats. Tonight, since I wasn't able to find sushi-grade fish, I threw together a simple smoked salmon roll. This week, I'll check Kim's oriental store in Vestal to see if they have anything, as they were closed today. 

   My trials this weekend have brought to light the difficulties I'm facing being a landlocked, jobless 16-year-old trying to make quality sushi. Hopefully I can raise a little dough doing chores around the house these next couple weeks and be able to purchase a fillet of salmon. 

....Am I Jiro Ono yet? 

Rice Cooker

   You know what I enjoy doing on a Sunday night? Rinsing rice, and straining rice. And rinsing it again, straining it again. And again. This step in the preparation of sushi rice is definitely tedious, but according to people who know more about rice than I do, it's important. If anyone can figure out why, let me know and I'll give you all of this rice that I just cooked and don't know what to do with.

   I recently got a rice cooker, and tonight was my first time using it. I had previously tried the stovetop method, which resulted in burnt rice, and a burnt-rice scented kitchen. The rice cooker turned out a much better product: the perfect sticky, fluffy texture for sushi rice. Now I understand why this handy dandy tool is a must-have for almost every professional sushi chef!

   This method of cooking rice will make my learning experience much easier, as properly cooked sushi rice is vital in the preparation of quality sushi. It will be especially helpful when making nigiri, a type of sushi for which shaping the rice with your hands is required. 

   As for this abundance of rice, I will probably incorporate it into a non-sushi related dish for dinner tomorrow, as I plan to work on the fundementals of sushi-making before practicing constructing it as a whole. 

   

   The mirror selfie: rice cooker edition.