...and his name is Spicy Tuna Roll. A few years ago, a new supermarket was raised in our little town. It is large, slick and seems to offer fancier stuff than the other markets in town. The first time I visited the new store I felt like I was in Disneyland. Here is the best part of what they offer: a variety of sushi, made fresh every morning, available in the cold case.
So well-known is my obsession with sushi, my best birthday gift this year (from my smart sister-in-law) was this in a service for four:
Look how saucey my boyfriend Wasabi looks in his soy sauce jaccuzi:
Also this:
...which prettily and helpfully looks like this on the inside:
And so I think, "Yes. I really must learn to make my own." And so my eye lands on things in the Asian food aisle in the supermarket that I feel I must have. Hey! seaweed wraps! I'll just snatch up some of those for when I make sushi. And sesame seeds! I'll need some of those. And wasabi? Well, that really just needs to be a household staple, I think.
And there they sit. Because, really, it now comes down to the raw fish. And this scares me. Ordinarily, I think of anything made in the home as highly superior to anything found in the supermarket, but in this case....I feel unqualified, I suppose, for handling and serving raw fish. It's not the squeamish factor, it's really just cluelessness on how this could possibly be OK. It's probably like the job of getting the candle wax out of the Christmas tablecloth, which took me until summer to face, so sure was I that it would take forever and still not be right. It turned out to take five minutes and looked beautiful in the end. Anyway, it seems like a big, hopeless job like candle wax or barf carpet, and it makes me not even look at the instructions in the "cook" book seriously. I'd rather have a buddy talk me through it reassuringly. Have any of you ever made your own sushi?
Margo and Micah make it all the time. I admire from afar and eat it at the late lamented Whole Foods.
ReplyDeleteha - I make a version I call ghetto sushi because I'm a little too lazy to get it exactly right. But it's got all the flavors, which is the important thing. I actually made a vow on my blog to learn to make it right (ack!).
ReplyDeleteHere's the thing: I've never used raw fish at home because it's just expensive. I use veggies. You know, you can use that fake crab or cooked shrimp if you feel too weirded out by the price or the health.
As to eating raw things, that's actually more common than most Americans know! Latin Americans eat ceviche - raw fish. The French eat beef Tartare - raw beef.
I'm totally going to call wasabi my boyfriend from now on :) in his jacuzzi. you kill me.
I'm just going to have to crack that book and dive in and learn the process. My Asian-American friend Marcie thinks it'll be hard to find "sushi-grade" fish in my town. I didn't know there was such a thing as sushi-grade fish. So much to learn.
ReplyDeleteMy absolute favorite Whole Foods sushi was made with smoked salmon and avocado. Don't forget the pickled ginger!
ReplyDelete