It's been a while since I posted about one of our cooking challenges.
It's not because the swiss rolls put us off, although you could understand if they had. In fact I made my sushi way back in July, straight after the disastrous swiss roll, but my mum has been waiting until my brother visited until she made hers. Unsurprisingly, my dad was decided to be a bad choice of judge for this challenge; he doesn't like salmon and he doesn't like sushi.
Here's what we made...
Mine is on the left and my mum's is on the right. My mum made smoked salmon, avocado and chive maki rolls.
I went all out with my sushi and decided to try lots of different types:
Clockwise from top left: Prawn, avocado and carrot hosomaki // Salmon nigiri // Prawn, cucumber, avocado and carrot California rolls // Salmon, cucumber, avocado and carrot futomaki // Salmon hosomaki
I really enjoyed the whole process and love how colourful it all looks as a platter.
I heard from a lot of people that the rice is the key to making great tasting sushi, so I asked my friend Tiago (expert sushi maker) what recipe he follows and he recommended this video, which worked a treat!
Cooking the rice was the longest part of the process, but once it is ready and cooled I was really impressed with how quickly it all came together. And the rolling was much easier than I thought it was going to be; even the California rolls didn't fall apart (thanks to the stickiness of the rice).
Now, to the results...
My brother gave my mum a score of 5/10 - he said rice was the main issue. My mum didn't follow the video recipe I shared with her and said she wasn't very happy with hers at all, hence the single photo of her sushi. I think they look ok though.
Ben, on the other hand was really pleased with his sushi feast and gave me a top score of 10/10, both for taste and appearance. Hooray! I've turned it around since the last challenge.
I will definitely be making sushi again, as it tasted really delicious, and wasn't quite as technically challenging as I thought it would be. A good summers evening spread.
Our next challenge is a festive one: Stollen
We planned this one so that we could make something whilst my mum was waiting for my brother to return, so the cook-off is in fact already complete and I will share the results soon.
