Super Sushi

Why is it that I do the things that I do? Maybe I’m starting to go a little crazy here living on my own…

Tonight was sushi night, so I spent most of the evening making sushi rice and putting together nori maki rolls. A couple teachers I was talking to today said that they had never eaten California rolls before, so I thought that I would make some tonight and bring some for them tomorrow.

I’ve made sushi a few times since I’ve been in Japan, but I always make the same thing: California rolls and usually a salmon roll to go with it. These are easy rolls that I know how to make and I know that they taste good. Tonight however, I didn’t feel like the usual sushi fare, so I made a point of exploring new sushi flavours. Actually, I told myself that I was going to make strangest sushi that I could come up with. Janice and I once attended a sushi making class where the instructor encouraged us to make up our own sushi concoctions. He even showed us some of the weird stuff he makes, which were far from the typical “Japanese” style flavouring; many of them were just weird. I like a good challenge, so with this in mind I got to rolling the stuff I bought from the store – as well as stuff I already had around my apartment. Since Janice is not around, I am free to explore all of my palatial desires without any concern for others.

After reading this post, many people will probably want to ask me whether any of them were any good. All I can say is that it was a lot of fun and that I’m exhausted. Coming up with all of these rolls requires a lot of planning, prepping, and tasting – by the time I actually got around to sitting down for dinner, I was stuffed from tasting all of my concoctions.

Here are some of the rolls that I came up with:


Garlic Sardine:

I bought what seemed to be marinated sardines of some sort, which I made rolls out of, but I also tried rolling them with garlic and negi.

Konbu and white onion:

I also bought some konbu – which is kind of a soy-sauce marinated seaweed; I rolled this with cucumber and white onion. (sorry, no photo).

Kimchi Peanut Butter:

This was probably the weirdest one of them all. I rolled kimchi with peanut butter and cucumber for crunch.

Sour Crab with a kick:

This was probably my favourite of the night. I rolled crab with cucumber, lemon rind, and added chili flakes inside and on top as a garnish.

Stinky Crab:

I don’t think I even tried this one – it’s in the fridge for breakfast tomorrow. I rolled crab with kimchi and garlic.