When I was in Japan, I attended a cooking class that taught us how to make sushi and tempura. Yesterday was my first attempt at recreating the sushi at home. I used Nishiki sushi rice that I got from T&T. I cooked it in the Instant Pot, cooking rice for 3 minutes on high pressure mode with 1.5 cups of rice to 2 cups of water.

  

To make the sushi rice seasoning, I used 1/4 cup rice vinegar, 3 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp salt, and a 2" x 2" square of kombu per cup of uncooked rice. Combine in a saucepan, heat, and stir until the salt and sugar are dissolved. Based on this recipe from Serious Eats: http://seriouseats.com/sumeshi-seasoned-sushi-rice-recipe-7253896 (in the foot notes at the bottom is the original recipe from J. Kenji López-Alt ). My kids helped me make the rice into football-sized balls for the nigiri and roll the rice out onto sheets of nori about 2 cm thick for the maki.

  

I purchased the salmon from Pelican Seafood Market and Grill. It’s a fantastic restaurant that also has a small market area that specializes in fresh fish and seafood. (https://www.pelicanseafood.ca/ I will do a deeper dive into the produce there in a future post.) 

For the maki I lay the salmon and cucumber in the middle of the rice and then rolled into long tubes before slicing into piece.  I put the sliced salmon directly onto the rice for the nigiri. 

Overall I was pretty happy with how it turned out, the family enjoyed it all for dinner.  Next time I will try to add a bit more variety, with some avocado and maybe some tuna if they have some fresh tuna available.  I also think I need to invest in some nicer plates to make these final product photos a little nicer. Any feedback is always appreciated.

BSB