Cheap sushi can be an invitation for gastro trouble.
You're dealing with raw fish and cheap is not a good idea.
But if you can tolerate an off-beat and skill-free approach to making sushi, you can save a little money and have some fun while you're at it.
First off, some things to acknowledge.
It takes huge skill and years of training to be a sushi chef — to be able to choose good fish, to cook proper sushi rice, to slice fish so that it's beautiful and delicious. A lot about how a piece of sushi fish turns out depends on the slicing.
The ingredients are crucial too. You need sushi-grade fish to make sushi.
And for me, there are certain types of sushi that I wouldn't trust myself to make. I need the expertise of a sushi chef to make sure the fish is good and won't make me sick.
With all those cautions, it's on to the sushi party. Purists wouldn't call it sushi, but it tastes like sushi.
You get a bunch of friends and family together and you have a wrapping party.
Buy your ingredients from a place like the Fujiya Japanese food market on Shelbourne in Saanich - vinegar, seaweed sheets, wasabi powder, frozen chunks of sushi grade tuna and salmon, and whatever else they have on offer. Maybe some smoked eel, fish eggs and octopus. Maybe some lox. Maybe some cooked crab meat and cooked shrimp. Plus spicy mayo (mayo mixed with Tabasco). Whatever you fancy.
Add English cucumber, avocado, green onions and carrots.
Buy a sack of sushi rice.
Cook up the rice using a sushi rice recipe like this one from Food Network's Alton Brown.
Cut up your fish and vegetables. For the vegetables, thin strips work well. For amateurs, the fish can be easier to slice if it's still semi-frozen.
Set ingredients out on plates. (Allow the rice to cool a bit in a wooden bowl, maybe loosely covered with a towel to prevent things from going dry.)
Everyone dives in to make their own rolls or cones.
Take a full or half sheet of seaweed. Spread rice on it with a spoon or your hands. Add ingredients you like. Roll it up. Eat.
The rolling part can be tricky. You can just do it loosely, rather than in the high-skill way of sushi restaurants. The seaweed will crack and tear if you're too aggressive.
Things are definitely not elegant. And I acknowledge that elegance and appearance are a big part of the sushi experience.
But enough apologizing. Try it out for a good, modest-cost feed the next time you have a bunch of sushi-loving but not-too-snobbish people over.
