Make sushi at home! (how we do it in Portugal)

Sushi became such a wonderful snack didn’t it?
No matter where we are from most of us loves it. Those wonderful rolls of fresh tasty fish and veggies and sometimes even fruits besides avocado.

Making sushi at home can be a fun thing and does not need to be an extremely expensive and fancy meal, can be instead a cool way of presenting food for kids (without the raw fish) and your friends and family when they come over for a special day. (let's keep this fun thoughts in mind when the pandemic is finally resolved)

(Above our son's lunch with some fake sushi rolls made just for him, he is 17 months old, it was a cool way for him to grab easily the rice since he still does not use cutlery)

You do not need to be an excellent cuisine chef or a master in sushi making. Basically, all you need is patience, a happy mood and of course a sharp knife as well good ingredients.

So, here it comes our way of doing it, here in Portugal.
In some areas and supermarkets it is quite easy to find basic ingredients for sushi, such as, wasabi, ginger and the nori leafs, the ones that we buy are usually the ones from the Saitaku brand, sold at the "Continente" supermarket (for €2,19) or in Martim Moniz district at the Chinese stores that sell Asian foods, we can find there other brands with a similar price.

Usually sushi rice is more expensive than the other so-called "normal" rices, but we found out (thanks to a friend) that the Portuguese rice from the "carolino" type (oryza sativa species) makes the service pretty well. It is a slighty glutinous rice of small grains, that is used vastly in the Portuguese cosine and is quite similar to the sushi rice.
So, paying between €1,49 to €2,59, that is usually the cost of the most common sushi rice here in Portugal (and only 500gr), to pay €0,99 to €1,30 (for 1 kg) makes all the difference. (We use the "Bom Sucesso" brand, that is a higher quality rice)

(...and believe me it tastes as good as the original one, maybe not 100% of course but when you can’t access sushi rice or want to save some extra pennies is worth a try.)

We usually use salmon, tuna and hake for our sushi meals, as well avocado, cucumber and sesame seeds.
All the fish should be frozen once before risking doing the sushi, we have to be careful because of bacteria.

Once you have sure the fish got frozen you can start the thawing process. I advise to cut it when the fish is still half frozen, when you don't have a very sharp knife or your ability to cut is still a bit "rookie" like mine.

(you will get confidence every time you make it, so do it relaxed and do not try to be perfect, just have fun!)

The rice once is cooked you should mix it with rice vinegar and wait for 5 minutes, if you can't find the rice vinegar you can do a mix with, white wine, normal vinegar, a bit of sugar and a pinch of salt, if you can find it you can add as well a bit of kombu and Mirin, but can be optional. The rest is a bit of patience and starting to make the rolls.