Real "Sushi" Making at Home, Japanese style

Most non-Japanese people really like to ask me "How one can make sushi". Once and for all, I honestly have no idea. Sushi is not cooking, it's an art form by a highly skilled professional who needs at least a decade of training before one can call himself a "sushi chef" (hence most sushi chefs in the world are totally fake). Japanese people do NOT make sushi at home, simply because we can't. We only have sushi at home when we do take-out or delivery. The closest thing to "making sushi" are norimakis (or commonly called, "makis" in the Western world) or temaki sushi or chirashi sushi. Now, don't get fooled by the name. It's entirely different from what you would get at a sushi restaurant. The only thing that is similar is that all 3 dishes use sushi-meshi, or rice that has kelp broth and vinegar mixed in and kept at lukewarm temperature.

 Among our family, we do temaki sushi a lot just because it's a make-it-yourself style. Temaki literally means "hand roll" so we basically put however much rice on our seaweed, and we add various toppings to it and roll it up. It's kind of like a Japanese version of a taco.

Traditionally, we wrap slices of sashimi, thinly fried omelette eggs, fake crab meat, fish roe, and some green onions but lately people have become creative and use other ingredients so basically anything goes. In our family, we like to use avocados as you can see!

 You take a small amount of rice on to your seaweed (if you put too much, you won't be able to roll it at the end)

Place the slices of sashimis on top of the rice

Then roll it up

 It looks really nice if you roll it into a cone shape so you can see the various colors of the ingredients inside.

It's much less time consuming and less skilled involved than making norimakis; plus you can adjust all the ingredients to your liking so our family really gets a kick out of it anytime. Plus we always find creative things to put into our rolls. I also like putting cheese as well. It works great at parties and mixers since it helps starts conversations and keeps things interesting. You an probably google up more precise recipes and ways to do it but it's really easy way to enjoy "sushi"