How to make sushi rice

Speaker: Welcome to Sushi Time. Hello and welcome to Sushi Time. It's no secret that the popularity of Sushi has literally exploded over the past ten years. Sushi is fun, healthy and actually very easy to make and making your own Sushi at home can save your time. With Sushi Time, you're going to learn the techniques to make your own sushi rolls at home tonight. You need a simple Cucumber Roll also known as a Kappa Maki or a more advanced roll in inside out asparagus tempura salmon cream cheese roll. But enough talk, let's get rolling. Now let's talk about some of the tools you'll need to make sushi at home. First and foremost a good sharp knife. A sushi knife is often called a bento knife and has a wood handle so won't slip, when it gets wet. A wide shallow bowl or sushi oki to mix your rice. A small wooden paddle to stir the rice mixture, a small hand-fan to cool your rice mixture, a rolling mat or Makisu to roll your sushi rolls and finally a good quality plastic wrap. Now, we've gone over some of the basic tools you'll need. Let's go over some of the basic ingredients you'll need to start making sushi. First, sugar, salt and rice vinegar for your sushi rice mixture, soy sauce for flavoring, wasabi for seasoning, kelp for your sushi rice mixture, seaweed or nori for wrapping your sushi rolls, and of course, rice. Rice really is the most important ingredient in sushi. It is the rice in fact that makes sushi, sushi. Sushi simply means seasoned rice mixed with other ingredients. If you wanted to roll a corn dog roll, you could do it, it would be sushi. But the most important thing is that you use short grained rice. Long grained, 30 seconds, 1 minute rice, none of that stuff will do. You need to get short grained rice which you can find at most Asian food marts. To prepare your rice, stick to the instructions on the back of the package. For our rice, we use the following recipe. This will make about four large rolls. What you'll need is 1-1/2 cups of short grained rice, 2 cups of water and 1 inch strip of dried kelp. First, combine the rice, water and kelp and let it soak for about ten minutes. Next, bring the mixture to a boil, remove the kelp, cover and simmer over low heat for 30 minutes. It is important to not lift the lid during this process. Next, remove from heat and let's stand for ten minutes. Next, let's prepare our sushi rice seasoning. The recipe is simple, for every one cup of rice that you cook, add 1 tablespoon of rice vinegar, 1 tablespoon of super fine sugar and slightly less than a teaspoon of regular table salt. Combine the mixture into a small sauce pan and stir until it dissolves. Next, with your wooden paddle, fold the rice mixture for slowly adding the rice vinegar seasoning. Do this until the rice is close to room temperature. We've covered the basic ingredients and tools, you'll need to start making the perfect sushi rice at home. Now let's get rolling. Join us for our next episode, how to make your first Sushi Roll.