First attempt at sushi: Inside-Out Phili Roll

If you love sushi and eat it at least once a week, when the day comes you make it yourself, you will be in heaven!

I still need to find some good reliably fresh fish to use.
Today I used smoked salmon. You could even make tuna salad and tuck it into a sushi roll.
The filling consisted of 1/3 less fat Philadelphia cream cheese, sliced cucumber and sliced smoked salmon. I tried spicy mayo on the side. Rather too rich for this but it was nice to try.

Santa brought me a rice cooker for Christmas! I used it for the first time.
I have reservations since it only cooks for 15 minutes, not the usual 20 and the rice was undercooked. Not terribly undercooked so it just needs some tweaking.

The first thing is to thoroughly rinse your sushi rice in a mesh type colander.
1 cup of rice is good to start. I used 1/2 cup but it seemed to barely be enough.

Next time after rinsing, I will let the grains soak in water for 10 minutes with a piece of konbu before turning on the cooker.
It seems that there are many techniques used to prepare sushi rice. Some say soak for 10 minutes, others for two hours before cooking it.
The cooker cooks in only 15 minutes so I suppose next I will let it sit for 5 minutes before I stir it then another ten to let it cool on a plate before I season it using my hands.
1/2 cup rice; 3/4 cup water: cook
seasoning: almost full 1 teaspoon mirin, the rest filled by rice vinegar
Toast your own sesame seeds. Or buy them toasted.
It took me 2 burnings to get it down! 2 minutes in the toaster oven, remove promptly, use aluminum foil (which cools fast).
Smoked salmon! Most packages at the supermarket are 4 oz., I used 2 oz. to make 3 rolls.
Cut into strips for easy placement.
Seasoning the rice. Make sure you use a nonreactive container. I used a melamine plate. Sprinkle seasoning over then use your hand to gently turn and mix it around. Keep your hands in it. This stuff is soooo sticky, you better have a bowl of water to rescue your hands! One youtube flick I watched, the maki maker suggested wearing gloves smeared in mayo! Well, you'll be glad to know water works perfectly fine.

Super sticky!

I cut one sheet into three pieces. Next time I will just cut it in half.

Prepped cucumber and cream cheese formed into pencil thin logs.

Put plastic wrap over the bamboo mat.
Lay down a piece of nori and place your rice on the mat, formed larger than the width.

Place the nori on top and arrange your fillings.

Slide the sushi to the middle of the mat and start rolling.

Here you can see where I was short on the rice.

Tester approved; he gobbled all of it up!