California Rolls

 Last night my husband and I had a small group bible study, led by a friend of ours, in our house. Seven other couples besides ourselves come over and we dig into the sermon preached by our Pastor on Sunday morning. Its great because sometimes you hear a message and go 'what?!' so this is the chance to break down the sermon and ask questions and connect with others in our congregation. 

The sermon was based on Romans 1:5-7. We talked about sin, that it is disobeying God and that we are commanded to repent. He doesn't just tell us to do this for His own benefit, but for our own good. 

There was more, lots more, but I won't type it all out for you.

Last night was the second group and we had our friends Teddy(leading the group) and Debbie over early for dinner and I made some California Rolls!

Wanna learn how?

Supplies

Bamboo mat

rice spoon(optional)

chopsticks(optional)

rice cooker (unless your totally awesome and can make rice without one)

We got these from World Market, it was like 3 bucks for a set

Ingredients

to make sushi rice:

1 cup rice
1 cup water

1 tbs sugar

1.777 tbs rice vinegar (use your best judgement)

.33 tsp salt (again best judgment)

This amount of rice will make 2 rolls

Outside is a seaweed wrap - about 3 bucks at Winco or World Market

Insides:
1 package of imitation crab (doesn't take much at all)

1 cucumber

1 avocado 

(substitute for carrot if you don't like avocados)

Optional:

my brother likes to add a hot sauce called siracha to the imitation crab to make a spicy roll

Wash your rice and put it along with the other rice ingredients in your rice cooker, set to cook, and let it sit till it sets to warm. (Why I LOVE rice cookers)

It looks dirty but it's from the rice vinegar. Be sure to mix it all up.

While its cooking slice your cucumber, cutting out the seeds.  Slice the avocado, and shred the imitation crab.

The rice will be very sticky so get a bowl or cup of water that you can use to dip your fingers in before grabbing the rice, and your knife to slice your california rolls

Wrap your bamboo mat in plastic wrap to keep it clean. Just a way to avoid extra clean up

 

 Wait for your rice to cool so you can touch it without burning yourself, and scoop a good amount onto your seaweed wrap, it's best to have your seaweed on the bamboo mat already so you don't have to pick it up and move it.

Now start pressing your rice into the wrap. Press quite hard so that it is smashed tightly together, fill the whole wrap with rice this way. you can do a thick layer of rice or a thin layer. It just depends on how thick you want your rice to be around. 

Turn the wrap over (the rice should not fall off as you turn it over, if it does you didn't push it down hard enough) and get the sliced avocado, cucumber, and imitation crab and layer it on the green side of the wrap. Use as much as you want, just keep in mind how big your roll will get.

This is where it takes practice...

Roll your mat over so it wraps the rice around your inside ingredients...

try to wrap tightly but not too tight or you'll squeeze the avocado out the sides.

Once you've rolled it all up press around the outside with the bamboo mat to shape it to be round, or you might have a california square instead of a california roll!

 

Get the knife and dip it in the water along with your fingers to hold the roll. You'll need to dip your knife and fingers after every slice cut.

Once you've sliced the roll, add your favorite sauce and enjoy!

If you find that the rice is falling off the roll, or if falls apart when you pick it up then you didn't smash the rice enough to the seaweed wrap. (it took me a couple times to realize just how mashed the rice needs to be)

Here's an example, Its falling apart because the rice wasn't smashed enough.

 

This is a great, simple way to enjoy sushi. WAY cheaper then going out for sushi. I wouldn't recommend making this for the first time when you're having guests over, give yourself some needed practice to prefect the process.

You can also substitute what goes inside your own sushi roll. I tried smoked salmon, jalapeno, cucumber and avocado and it was great. So be creative and appeal to your taste buds.

Bon Appétit!