- Rinse the rice. For a long time. The water coming out of the colander should be completely clear for the best quality
- Boil the rice in the water and salt. Once boiling, turn down to a simmer until the rice is done, usually 15 minutes or so.
- When the rice is about done, warm up the rice vinegar and add the sugar so it dissolves.
- Put the cooked rice and the warm vinegar mixture into a large bowl and fold the mixture into the rice until the rice cools down to 'lukewarm'. This is a time-consuming process. Afterwards, allow the rice to cool to almost room temperature, folding over occasionally.
- The above 4 steps were the steps to making sushi. Sushi is the rice, the sweet and sticky and vinegary rice. It is delicious by itself.
- Lay a piece of nori on a rolling mat. If you don't have a rolling mat (they're $1.50), you can do it on wax paper, but that's more difficult. I usually cut 1/4 of the nori off - you don't need an entire sheet for normal rolls.
- Pat sushi rice onto the first 2/3 of the nori, bottom to top. Make sure it covers the majority of the nori left to right, and pat it firmly onto the sheet.
- Place julienned vegetables onto the middle of the rice, covering the roll from left to right. See photo below. Be generous.
- Now roll. As you roll over, continually pull the top of the roll back into the roll to make sure it stays tight. So roll, then squeeze, roll, and squeeze, until you get past the rice, then just roll the rest.
- The final part if to cut the roll into pieces. The nori often has a cutting guide, but in general, do 1.5" pieces. The knife will get sticky, so I usually wet the knife, sometimes wipe off the rice gunk, between every or every other slice.
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