Sushi. So sexy. So seductive. So hard to make. Or so I thought. I took a sushi class several years ago and was humbled by my sticky, awful and particularly ugly rolls. I thought I was doomed to be a sushi-making failure. But rolling makis with the girls made me reconsider. There were some misteps of course. Jill was hurt in the line of duty and required some first aid. I shed some wasabi induced tears. But in the end it wasn't difficult at all and we had a really great time doing it. Lisa revealed a latent, sushi-making genius, making us question her true origins. “Give it up Lisa, you're actually Japanese right?” I was fairly excited about our creations and crooned to our sushi like a dirty foodie while I snapped photos. “Oh yeah, that’s sexy. Nice..nice..yeah.” Silly? Yes. I'm blaming it on the fact that I was drunk off my new sushi powers. I feel redeemed.
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Sushi
Sushi Rice
cooked short grain rice (Nishiki, Tamaki Gold, Tamanishiki)
sushi rice seasoning mix (Tamanoi Sushinoko)
Just follow the instructions on the back of the seasoning mix. It's generally 1 2.65oz bag of seasoning to 4 cups of cooked rice
Spicy Tuna Mayo
Japanese mayo (Kewpie Mayo)
Chili sauce (Sriracha)
Mix 1 part Japanese mayo with 1 part sriracha. Use less if you want it to be less spicy.
Other sushi ingredients
fixings:
wasabi (S&B prepared wasabi, Waner powdered wasabi)
cucumber
crab sticks
avocado
smoked salmon
nori (seaweed)
black sesame seeds
toasted white sesame seeds
ginger
Supplies
plastic wrap
bamboo sushi rolling mat
Chicago area shopping
Mitsuwa Market in Arlington Heights
Chicago Food Corp. on Kimball
Instructions
Rolling sushi
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Faux Yakisoba
This is actually a family recipe for pork chow mein. I ran out of time and had to rely on this old favorite instead of making something authentically Japanese. Oops. I make this without a specific recipe, so I have to apologize in advance if my measurements seem vague.
1 lb pork tenderloin
1 head napa cabbage
1 yellow onion
1 green onion
1 lb cooked noodles
reserve a cup of noodle/pasta water
Thai soy sauce (Golden Mountain Soya bean sauce)
sugar
sherry
pinch salt
sesame oil
handful of chopped cilantro
Slice the pork tenderloin into thin strips. Put it into a bowl and marinate with a couple good splashes of soy sauce, a splash of sherry, a sprinkle of sugar, and a pinch of salt. Let it marinate while you chop the rest of your ingredients.
Slice the napa cabbage, yellow onion and green onion into strips and keep them in separate bowls.
Have a large bowl ready to hold your finished noodles.
Heat a pan with corn oil on medium-high heat. Stir fry the pork tenderloin until cooked and dump it into the large bowl, include all the juices.
Repeat this process with the napa cabbage, yellow onion and green onion. Stir fry them all separately with a little corn oil and splashes of the soy sauce. With each batch, once it has completely cooked, dump all of it into the large bowl and move on to stir frying the next ingredient.
With the noodles, have the oil heated in the pan. Then before adding the noodles, put a couple of good splashes of soy sauce into the heated oil. Only after you have done that, add the noodles to stir fry. (This helps to coat the soy sauce more evenly on your noodles. Putting the soy sauce on afterwards results in uneven distribution.) If the noodles are stuck together, add a ladleful of reserved pasta water. Stir the noodles until evenly coated and heated through. Dump it into your large bowl.
Stir all the noodle components together in your large bowl. You can add some chopped chili peppers into the mix if you prefer your noodles spicy. Garnish with chopped cilantro. I like to serve it with an Asian hot sauce such as Sriracha or a garlic chili paste. Plate and serve!
Serves 4-6.
Adapted from Auntie Shelfee
Angie's Notes: You can also substitute regular cabbage for the napa. Make sure it gets nicely browned and soft, as it's less watery than napa, but still delicious. You can also add shiitake mushrooms, stir fried in oil and soy sauce.
For noodles, I used a Chinese egg noodle for the supperclub, but I just as often use plain spaghetti or fettucine, or even little Korean rice cakes.
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