Making sushi at home (with the Instant Pot)

In a recent post, written while it was 95˚F, I mentioned I craved sushi when the weather was hot, but didn't crave making it myself. That's probably still true, but it's much cooler now, it's been in the 70s the last few days, and today it was only 80, so my idea of what I will and won't make has altered a bit. And besides the mellowing weather, I also have a new Instant Pot. You know how it is when you get something new in the kitchen — everything seems like a good idea. With a bag of sushi rice and my Instant Pot, all things seemed possible.

It's been ages since I last made sushi, so I consulted three different sources to check the proportion of rice to water, and how long to cook the rice — using a pressure cooker. I found everything from 1 cup of water:one cup of rice to one-and one-half cups of water:one cup of rice. The later was the proportion of white rice to water in the Instant Pot recipe booklet. I chose to follow the directions in the booklet, but I can tell you now, it's too much water, as I suspected it would be. I was disappointed, but I couldn't let a pot full of really soft and sticky rice stop me from making sushi.



The planned fillings were nontraditional, but vegan sushi in general is nontraditional, so what you choose to roll up inside is pretty much up to you. First I made a seasoning mix of rice vinegar, mirin, tamari and a little bit of coconut sugar, which I mixed into the hot, cooked rice while also fanning the rice, to cool it. Then I prepped three fillings. The first was made with oyster mushrooms, sautéed in a little vegetable broth, then paired with arugula. The second was strips of fresh cucumber and the third was leftover stir-fried tofu, kale, carrots and cherry tomatoes. The cucumber rolls were also enhanced by a thin stripe of umeboshi paste along the length of the nori sheet, so that each piece of sushi would contain a bit of the tangy umeboshi flavor to offset the bland but sweet cukes. 



The first roll I made was a clear indication that I'd forgotten how to make sushi; I didn't even think to check my own blog for tips. Had I clicked here to review what we learned in a sushi-making class back in 2010, everything from the rice cooking to the sushi rolling might have gone more smoothly. The first roll I assembled was too fat. When I saw the way it looked, I remembered how little rice it takes to make a sushi roll. The first bloated pieces were eaten immediately, to hide the shame, and are not in any of the photos.



All three of the varieties were delicious (or would have been had the rice not been the consistency of rice pudding) but my favorite was absolutely the oyster mushroom and arugula. The sweet, delicate taste, and tender but toothsome texture of the mushroom was perfect with the crisp sharpness of the greens. I'll definitely be making more of these.

I'm looking forward to perfecting my sushi rice cooking in the Instant Pot. Any advice happily accepted.

There are Amazon links in the post. If you click on one and buy something, I will earn a small reward, but your cost will not be affected in any way.

A weekend of eating in San Francisco and Santa Cruz part 1

View from the tower at the top of the de Young Fine Arts Museum

We just spent a terrific weekend in San Francisco with a day trip to Santa Cruz. We mostly explored beautiful spaces and ate, with a few shopping outings thrown in, and had a great, energetic but relaxing, mini-vacation. We arrived late Friday afternoon, and settled into our airbnb in Lower Haight. The small space was comfortable enough, but if I were renting out my place and charging rent plus a cleaning fee, I'd try to make it actually clean.

The stove looked like this, and the oven was 10 times worse — thickly crusted and greasy, as I discovered when I tried to warm up a snack. I scoured the kitchen sink so I could stand to use it — and we had to use it more than you'd think because the bathroom sink didn't drain. My husband wiped down the refrigerator door which was so gross even he noticed. Mostly it was OK, but I wouldn't stay there again.

On Friday evening we went to a new vegan sushi place in the Mission, Shizen Vegan Sushi Bar & Izakaya, and I was very excited to experience a restaurant that served creative vegan sushi, since I'm usually limited to cucumber, avocado, or if I'm lucky, kampyo sushi. We started with a warm garlic-kale-hiziki dish that was extremely delicious.

After the kale we shared two specialty rolls, but I'm really sorry I can't remember what they were. They were both so good I was practically inhaling them. The one above came flaming at one end of the plate, which was exciting.

I can't remember what this one was, either, except that it tasted great. So great, in fact, that we ordered another one, but for some reason the second roll wasn't nearly as good as the first.

My husband and I were sharing gluten-free options while our dining companions ordered with abandon. Imagine, vegans, going to a sushi restaurant and ordering anything on the menu! This roll was one of their choices, and you can see another one of their selections peeking out in the background. (The restaurant was too dark for my camera so I had to rely on my iphone.)

Shizen Vegan Sushi Bar & Izakaya was not without issues. Though I enjoyed eating there, it was impossible not to notice the extremely slow service. I'm talking at least an hour wait before we were seated, another hour wait before the first dish came out, and maybe another hour before we had received and eaten all of our food. Everything was beautiful and delicious, but at least one of my (very hungry) dining companions was rather miffed. And since we ordered two of the same rolls, and the second one was not nearly as good as the first, there might be issues of inconsistency. Still, if you are in San Francisco, you should try Shizen Vegan Sushi Bar & Izakaya. Hopefully they will only get better, if that's even possible. I will certainly go there again no matter how long I have to wait.

My iphone app says I walked more than 12,000 steps on Sunday and even more on Saturday, but now I'm having trouble keeping it all straight. I know we went to the Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park on Saturday, where we strolled through the gorgeous gardens, including the succulent garden, above. I love succulents, though I never can seem to grow the really big ones that I see all over San Francisco in pocket gardens and pots.

After the gardens and a view from the top of a nearby museum tower, we went out to a late lunch at Seed and Salt. Alison and I loved our kale Caesar salads — so fresh, crunchy and tasty, with small squares of crispy, fried black-eyed pea tempeh and toasted sunflower seeds, and I think Jordan enjoyed his eggplant BLT.

But my husband was much less enthusiastic about his beet burger. It was pricey at $14, and kind of small. I was stuffed after my salad but he was still hungry. I really loved Seed and Salt — both the atmosphere and the food, though it was on the expensive side, as you can see if you follow the link and peruse the menu. I'd absolutely go there again.

After lunch we had a little shopping expedition to an enormous athletic store where Alison looked for bike gear for a ride she's going on, and the rest of us just wandered around looking at clothes and stuff. Then we headed to Rainbow Co-op which is the most excellent natural foods store I've ever been in. I wish we had a similar store in Seattle. I could find anything I could possibly want there, no matter how obscure. Alison and Jordan did their grocery shopping, and Ken and I picked up a few provisions for breakfast and the trip home. We bought one of Miyoko's Creamery cheeses as well as a package of chewy and delicious Hodosoy tofu and some Suzie's thin cakes crackers.

My favorite crackers — next to Mary's.

On Saturday night we picked up my niece, and the five of us headed to what used to be one of my favorite restaurants, Gracias Madre, for dinner. You can read about my other visits to Gracias Madre here and here. I say "used to be" because I'm now thinking the food is too heavy, or too oily or too something, because I had an upset stomach after my meal.

Tacos and refried beans at Gracias Madre.

It's so dark in the restaurant that my photos are not very mouthwatering, but I can tell you I had three tacos, one of which was filled with roasted beets, one with asparagus and one with broccoli, and a mound of refried black beans that looked like a big pile of decrepit poop, and which were too salty to eat. I ate some of the soft corn tortillas, all of the tasty vegetables, and none of the beans. Maybe it was an off night, but I wasn't as thrilled with the food as I usually am. Read my other posts for much more positive reviews. My husband had the evening special, and he described it as "OK but not great." On the other hand, Alison thought the same dish was delicious. So there you go.

Dinner was late — there had been a long wait for a table, and by the time we got back to the airbnb, we were ready to do some quiet reading, and fall into a deep sleep.

Giant succulents in a pot in front of our airbnb.

Making sushi | Carmelita's pizza | listed again

The sushi rolls I made in class.

I recently dreamed I went out for ice cream with my youngest son to a place I heard had vegan options. At first we couldn't figure out where to get in line to place our order, but once we did, I saw there were four vegan flavor choices. The only one that sounded good was peach. I ordered it, and it was a grey-brown color, and came between two slices of dark brown bread — an ice cream sandwich of the weirdest kind. I ate the ice cream off one slice and immediately felt sick. Luckily I woke up before I could eat any more.

My very first inside-out rolls.

That dream sucked, but how about this one? I'm in a pleasant room with my husband and a number of other people, and a former zen monk hands me a bowl of perfectly cooked and seasoned rice and a plate of exquisitely cut veggies with which to make sushi. This is a much better dream, isn't it? Only this isn't a dream; this is a real cooking class at our local food co-op. It feels like a dream, though. How many times have you wished for a sous chef to perfectly prepare ingredients for your masterpieces? The teacher demonstrated cutting techniques, and talked a little (maybe too little) about cooking rice, but he did all the prep work, which is both good and bad. We didn't get to practice cutting or learn how to make perfect rice, though we did get to make both regular rolls and inside-out rolls. I've made lots of sushi rolls before but learned how to make them better. And this was my first go at inside-out rolls. You can see the results above.

The next day at home, I set about making sushi without the teacher's help, and realized nearly all my rice-cooking experience was with brown rice, and I'd chosen to use white rice for my sushi experiments. The teacher used a rice cooker but I used my pressure cooker. I remembered back to the Shojin Japanese cooking class we'd taken previously, where we learned to wash the rice with several changes of cold water until the water ran clear, and I did that. Then I cooked it and left the rice in the pot with the lid on for 30 minutes after turning off the heat like the sushi teacher recommended. Once the rice is cooked and rested it goes into a wide, shallow bowl (a wooden bowl is best because it absorbs excess moisture), and the side of a rice paddle or spoon is used to gingerly mix the rice with seasoned rice vinegar. (Seasoned rice vinegar contains salt and sugar and I don't use it. Instead, I cooked the rice with a pinch of salt, and used brown rice syrup along with unseasoned rice vinegar to season the rice.) It's the vinegar that is supposed to make the rice sticky, not the mixing, so care should be taken not to damage the rice kernels and release starch. You want to mix and fan the rice to bring it to room temperature.

Following the teacher's cutting techniques as best I could, I prepared vegetables for the sushi. I used cucumber with the core removed, avocado, carrots, baked tofu and green onions. In our class we also had asparagus but we planned to have wok-grilled asparagus for dinner so I didn't include any in the rolls. On the plate there is also wasabi and umeboshi paste. (Just thought I'd mention I cut my carrots with the new Borner V slicer I found at Goodwill for $2.99. I don't know if I should stay away from that store or go more often.)

To assemble the sushi, lay a sheet of nori on a covered bamboo mat with the shiny side of the nori down, and the lines on the nori going in the same direction as the bamboo slats. The major thing I learned in class that changed my sushi-making was to place much less rice on the nori than I used to. The layer of rice should be very thin, with bits of nori showing through. The sushi tastes much better when the fillings don't compete with a thick layer of rice. Above you can see the rice spread to the sides of the nori sheet with a 1/2" edge of nori left at the top and bottom. I still put a little too much rice on this sheet because I can't seem to help myself from overdoing the rice, but really, it tastes better with less rice. There is also a stripe of umeboshi and a stripe of wasabi. The fillings should be confined to about 1/4 of the sheet. (If you compare my class sushi with the home version, you can see how the amount of rice used affects the ratio of rice to filling.) Keep a small bowl of water handy to dampen your fingers so the rice won't stick to you, but be careful not to use too much water or to wet the nori sheet.

To keep the bamboo rolling mat clean you can encase it in a plastic bag or cover it with wax paper, if desired. I used the covered mat and my fingers to help encase the fillings in the first rollover, and to press it firmly in place. If the rice comes out the ends of the nori, you've pressed too hard! I've moved the bamboo mat away so you can see the first roll. Use the mat to roll another section, being careful not to catch the paper into the roll. Roll and firm until the nori is completely rolled up. Use a very small amount of water on the open edge of the nori to seal the roll.

There should be chop sticks instead of a fork.

When the sushi is completely rolled up, support both sides of the roll with one hand and slice it into halves with a sharp, damp knife, using a sawing motion. In class we used a Japanese chef knife but I think a serrated knife works well, too. Cut each half in half, and repeat until you have eight pieces. Our zen teacher told us if we mess up any of the sushi, we should eat it and keep going, saving the best ones for serving. As you can see there are only seven pieces of sushi in the photo above because I took his advice!

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Out to dinner at Carmelita - not your ordinary pizza

We had a gift certificate to Carmelita that needed to be used, and since no one felt like cooking Friday night, we went out. I've had really good as well as not so great meals at this restaurant so I wasn't sure what to expect, but the meal was pretty terrific, and I was sorry not to have my camera with me. I won't go into the details of my asparagus appetizer or my husband's nettle soup and sweet potato gnocchi; I just want to talk about my pizza. It was topped with a puree of roasted sunchokes and truffles, with hen of the woods mushrooms, toasted pecans, roasted garlic, watercress salad and sunchoke chips. (The photo is of the half I brought home because I was stuffed.) The crust was almost like a crispy cracker and so delicious, and the toppings were amazing. I can't even begin to describe the gorgeous flavors, but on the downside it was way too oily, and my stomach was not as happy as my greedy taste buds. The next day I consumed two of the leftover pieces and felt like I'd eaten six. So yes, it was delicious, but will I order it again? Probably not.

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Another list?
It seems my humble blog made it onto another "best" list. Yikes. Here's an excerpt from an email I received:
I just published an article on my site, “50 Best Vegan Lifestyle Blogs.” I am happy to let you know that your site has been included in the article.

Best, Theresa Jackson

Theresa has assembled an interesting and useful list covering categories from becoming vegan, vegan cooking and international vegan cooking to gardening and vegan podcasts. Check out her list for blogs you may not be familiar with. New and aspiring vegans may find it especially helpful. I'm going to add some of the blogs to my reading list.