A couple of months ago, a friend of mine asked me to do a cooking demo for a party she was hosting. After hashing out the details of where I’d be doing it, and finding out that they didn’t have a full kitchen;we settled on my doing a sushi demo, since I can do that with just my portable burner. I learned how to make and roll sushi in culinary school, but hadn’t done it in a few years. About three days before the party, I decided to practice the rolling, since that’s something that is muscle memory more than anything. To say it didn’t go well would be a *vast* understatement.
I made the vinegared rice that turned out exactly how I wanted, then started rolling. I could *not* figure out why the rolls kept on being so overfilled, and were busting at the seams. I made about three rolls of my “not so spicy” tuna roll (recipe below) and they all turned out basically the same, no matter what adjustments I made. I was flummoxed. In the end, I decided that it must have been that I was simply putting too much rice in. I thought to myself, “I’ll fix that during the actual demo, it’ll be fine…I’ll figure it out, I’m sure”.
The day of the demo came along, and I made some adjustments…but it wasn’t until I made a VERY tiny adjustment that the light bulb went on over my head. At home, my kitchen is so small that I had the minimal amount of space to do the rolling. I had a cutting board on which to roll with the bamboo mat, and had to have the bowls with the filling and rice in the sink. However, at the demonstration, I had plenty of room, so I had everything on the counter, *including* the most important element that I had to forgo at home; a small bowl containing water plus a little bit of vinegar to clean my fingers with.
As I made a couple of rolls leading up to the demo to help feed the guests, I was noticing that the rice was much easier to move when I was using the water to clean my fingers. The rice was much easier to move to the left and right edges of the nori(the dried seaweed that you use for rolls) and the rolls were a lot more uniform, and looked much better than the ones I had done at home. When I did the demo for the guests, I made sure to talk about the revelation I’d just had, since that’s something they’d find super useful when they tried to make sushi themselves. But it wasn’t until the next day that the true lesson for myself kicked in.
I’ve heard multiple times through culinary school and in my small business training, that by far the best way to learn is to make mistakes and learn from them. All too often people aren’t willing to make mistakes, and just take the easiest path to avoid them. Do NOT do that. Failure, if you’re willing to be open-minded and learn from those failures, is a fantastic way to learn. I have multiple stores from culinary school on this subject that I won’t bore you with now, but every mistake I made led to me improving myself, my craft, and becoming a better chef.
I encourage everybody reading this, that no matter what you’re doing in life, don’t be afraid of failure. It’s far and away the best way to learn, to improve yourself, and get better at what you’re doing. This requires a bit of a mindset change for most people, but it’s an important one. I’ll definitely remember this lesson, and keep it front and center in my mind from now on. 🙂 Below is my full recipe for the “Not so Spicy” tuna roll.
“Not so spicy” Tuna Roll
1.5 C sushi rice
1.5 C water
1 2” x2” piece of kombu
2 T sugar
Filling
¾ lb suchi grade ahi tuna, diced
4 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1.5 T Sriracha
1 T toasted sesame oil
5-8 sheets of nori (sushi seaweed)
- Wash the rice in a strainer until the water runs clear
- Combine the rice, water and kombu in a pot, bring to a boil and reduce to simmer.
- Let the rice simmer for 15 minutes, then remove from the heat and let rest for 15 minutes.
- Once the rice has started cooking, combine the vinegar and sugar in a small saucepot. Bring heat to a medium-medium low and stir well to dissolve sugar
- Next, combine the cream cheese, Sriracha, and sesame oil together. Mix well.
- Add the diced tuna to the cream cheese mixture, and again combine well to incorporate the tuna with the cream cheese mixture
- Once the rice has finished cooking, fluff with a fork and place into a large bowl. If possible, put bowl into refrigerator for a few minutes.
- Once rice has cooled, fold in the vinegar and sugar mixture, ensuring that the vinegar is dispersed evenly.
- Spread out the vinegar rice evenly on the nori. Spoon a thin layer of the filling onto the rice, and roll up the sushi.
- Serve with wasabi and soy sauce.
