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The kitchen is the room that nurtures our souls and our bodies. It's the hearth of the 21st-century house, and everybody naturally congregates there. |
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—Regina Leeds, author of
The Zen of Organizing |
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| Series Classes Individual Classes Wine Education Class Photos |
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Individual Class: Sushi, March 2002
Sushi is an increasingly popular food and is often considered an "activity"—"let's do sushi" instead of "let's go out to a sushi restaurant." But sushi is most often enjoyed in restaurants, where, although fun and delicious, it can cost a pretty penny to get full.
Perhaps this is because sushi is so complex, and it's a bit intimidating to tackle at home. After all, you need special equipment, right? And don't those master sushi chefs in Japan spend years just learning how to wash the rice, before they're even allowed to begin learning how to prepare sushi? It must be terribly complicated.
Well, yes and no. It's true, there is a great deal to learn to be come a master sushi chef. But at the same time, with just a little information and practice, you can learn to make really delicious and beautiful sushi at home. Making sushi is fun, especially as something to do with a group or for a party, and what's more, it's so much cheaper than eating at a sushi restaurant that you'll think something's wrong. Once you have the equipment (and there's not much of that,) for $20 worth of ingredients, you can make enough sushi to completely stuff at least four people.
That's what students have learned at our sushi classes! Chef Gabriel goes over the equipment (which is available for purchase), techniques, and ingredients, and then we get down to work rolling and making sushi. Classes have been a great deal of fun and have ended with incredibly huge sushi feasts. Come join one and find out for yourself how easy and fun sushi can be to make at home!
At the beginning of class, students listen as Chef Gabriel explains the different
types of sushi, a bit of its history, and what we'll be doing throughout the
evening.
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Students work to prepare ingredients for the sushi. Cutting an avocado with the
skin still on allows for a great deal more control and accuracy. Once the slices have
been made while holding the avocado in one's hand, the skin is turned inside out and
the slices fall away. |
We cut carrots and daikon radish very thinly on the mandoline, a
razor-sharp tool. These are then soaked in water, which helps keep them from
wilting. They're used as garnishes on the finished sushi platters. |
Everyone discusses different uses for the mandoline.
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Two students sauté eggplant and shittake mushrooms for use in the
nigiri, a type of sushi that doesn't use the seaweed wrapper, nori.
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Once the vegetables are cut (we brought the fish already cut for this class) and
those that need to be cooked have been, we are ready to start making sushi. Here
students form the nigiri with their hands. |
Chef Gabriel reaches in to help a student get the feel for rolling the sushi.
At each class packages are available for purchase which include the sushi mat, wasabi,
chopsticks, pickled ginger, and everything else you'll need to make sushi at home
(except perishable items!). |
Soon students get the hang of making the sushi rolls themselves, and go to town
with different ingredient combinations.
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Perhaps the most popular type of sushi we made was the Spicy Tuna Roll, using Chef
Gabriel's delicious spicy but not-too-spicy recipe. Students jokingly argued over
who would get to eat the last one. |
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Students pose during their labors. In the center foreground here you can see the
sushi platters coming together, with a couple of whole rolls on one plate. It takes
a very sharp knife to cleanly cut the sushi rolls into individual sushi pieces.
It's also helpful to dip the knife in water or tezu, a combination of water and
rice wine vinegar, between cuts. You may need to stop and steel the knife during the
work to ensure that its edge is as sharp as possible. |
Laughing, a student holds up one of our finished sushi platters just before we all
sat down to eat. |
The class enjoys a comfortable, leisurely meal after our evening cooking together.
Aside from the jostling for Spicy Tuna Rolls, that is. |
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