Number 7 - Learn to make sushi

3 years ago I had never even tried sushi and now it's become one of my favorite foods. There's a misconception about what Sushi is with many people thinking it's a raw fish dish, I actually had this perception before too. But sushi is actually a Japanese dish of cold cooked vinegard flavored rice shaped in small cakes and topped, wrapped or combined with other ingredients, including seafood (often raw) vegetables and even chicken, and is often served with soy sauce, pickled ginger and wasabi. 

Every time I buy my pre-prepared sushi at Waitrose for lunch or I order it in a restaurant, I always wondered how the dish was prepared. So this weekend I booked a cooking class at The London Cookery School to learn how to make sushi. 

Our class included a group of around 20 and we had a lovely sushi teacher Peter who talked a little about the key ingredients used to make sushi and how to cook and prepare the rice in advance. The rice is washed and cooked in a special vinegar-ed water then cooled and tossed to give it it's sticky texture. And you should only buy raw fish for sushi from a fishmonger and don't use supermarket packs to ensure its safe to eat. 

The class was so much fun, Peter gave clear instructions and we all set about weighing our ingredients and trying to get the method perfected, which wasn't as easy as it looks! The bamboo mat definitely helped with making the rolls but there is certainly an art to getting all the ingredients in together.  

Our favorite technical term of the evening was 'tickle the rice'. 

We prepared 5 different types of sushi dishes which I've detailed below. 

Hoso Maki - nori (seaweed) and rice wrapped sushi rolls.  
We made two types, 'Kappa Maki', which has a cucumber filling and 'Tekka Maki' with a salmon sashimi filling. 

UraMaki - known as inside out Sushi Roll. The nori (seaweed) is on the inside and the rice on the outside coated with seaseme seeds with multiple filllings of seafood and vegetables

Nigirizushi - oblong mound of sushi rice topped with shashimi and garnishing over the ball. served with wasabi. 

Temaki - is a large cone-shaped piece of Nori on the outside and the ingredients spilling out the wide end.

The best part of the evening was being able to eat all the great food we'd prepared, and there was so much of it! Well that's if you didn't eat most of it along the way like Sam did! Traditionally sushi was a street food and is supposed to be eaten by hand, but I was happy to show off my chopstick skills. 

I love learning about new cultures and what better way than through food! All in all, a great fun filled evening that I would recommend to anyone who would like to learn something new, and i'll be trying this out with my guests at my next dinner party.