DIY-EATS: Oishii Omnomnom

I flunked Nippongo. Big deal.

Well, I didn’t really fail because it was that hard to tackle, what happened was, I dropped the subject mid-semester because I got too caught up with last year’s holidays (my sister and her family flew in from Europe and I got ‘busy’). Still, it wasn’t an easy class; we also had to write Japanese.

I remember when I took up Fookien and barely made it. My Lǎoshī told all of us, we shouldn’t worry about failing because she totally understands how impossible it is for us to learn the entire module if we only meet 3 hours a week for 5 months. She spoke the truth.

I thought about how incompetent I am at anything Japanese. I’m not into anime like 90 percent of the population unless if it’s in the general category of cute (i.e.Totoro) and kikay (i.e.Sailor Moon). You hate me by now. I do like Japanese cars, noodles, Meiji chocolate, engrish.com and was crazy about the perfumed stationery collection of my childhood aaaand my most favorite soy sauce in the world is Kikkoman.

I was about 10 years old when I first had it when Pa brought home gallons from his trip to Japan. This condiment brings me to joyous tears, no kidding. Many cooking decisions have been made because of it but there is one thing I have never tried making until a few weeks ago when my friends, Mimie and Tobal brought me to this restaurant and ordered maki rolls. That was ridiculously good so I made some at home.

Homemade California Maki Rolls

Ingredients:

3 cups Japanese Rice

4-6 sheets Nori wrapper

1 pack ready to eat leg-style Crabsticks

1 medium Cucumber, cut into thin sticks

2 ripe Mangos, cored and cut lengthwise

Kikkoman soy sauce and Wasabi powder or paste, for dipping

You are going to need:

A sushi mat

A bowl of cold water

A sharp knife

Chopsticks

How-to:

1. Wash the Japanese rice very well and drain. Do this three times. Boil and cook the rice with 3 cups of water and set aside. Others mix the sushi rice with Japanese vinegar and dashi but I prefer it plain because the Kikkoman dipping sauce is tasty enough but it’s up to you.

2. To assemble the maki rolls: Set the sushi mat and place one sheet of Nori wrapper on top.

3. Scoop out enough rice and flatten it in the middle part of the Nori. Compress it with a wet spoon or your fingers making sure the rice is packed and there aren’t any holes.

4. Arrange the crabsticks, mango and cucumber in the middle of the rice.

5. Start at the edge nearest you and roll the Nori over using the sushi mat to form a tube.

6. Roll the tube firmly with your palm over the mat but do not push too hard. If not done carefully, the rice will spill out to the sides of the open tube. It happened to me. Haha.

7. To cut: Dip a sharp knife in cold water before cutting the rolls. This will prevent the rice from sticking to the knife. Hold tube lightly and cut into ½ inch coins.