Today i'm going to show you how to make a sushi roll that's the perfect one bite canape for a crowd, so stick around! [Music] Welcome back to No Recipes. I'm Marc Matsumoto, and I'm here to show you how to elevate your everyday meals, so be sure to give that subscribe button and notification bell some love so you don't miss out! I was born in Japan, but grew up in California, so I can kinda relate to this modern roll that helped launch the popularity of sushi around the world. A lot of people hate on it because it's not a traditional roll, but, who's to say that a roll born in Japan and raised in North America Isn't authentic in its own way. You see, sushi has a history dating back over a thousand years here in Japan, and the sushi that you and I know was created only about 200 years ago as a sort of fast food sold out of street stalls near Tokyo Bay. Although there's some dispute
about who invented it, the California Roll was
created by an inventive chef sometime in the 1970s using local ingredients, and arranging them in a way that was a little more palatable to people who weren't used to eating raw fish in seaweed. It included cooked crab and avocado, which gave it the flavor of the sea and the richness of Otoro. Instead of rolling the nori on the outside, the chef inverted the roll so the nori was hidden on the inside. I like to add some strips of cucumber and sprinkle on some sesame seeds on the rice, but there's a lot of room to be creative here, and the most important thing is to use the best quality ingredients that you can find. For the filling, we're gonna need about 200 grams of crab meat. If you can't find fresh crab meat, you can use imitation crab as well. You're also gonna need 1 avocado, some lemon juice, and 1 small cucumber. To make the roll, we're gonna need 3 full sheets of nori, a batch of sushi rice, and some toasted sesame seeds. For the sushi rice, I have a detailed video showing you how to make it, which I'll link to in the description, but here's a quick recap. You're going to need 1and 1/2 US cups or 310 grams of Japanese short grain rice, along with 1 and 1/2 cups of water. The first thing you need to do is wash the rice until the water runs clear. Drain it well and add it to a pot along with
a cup and a half of cold water. Cover that with a lid and let the rice rehydrate
for at least 20 minutes. For the sushi vinegar we need 4 tablespoons of rice vinegar, 3 tablespoons of sugar, and 1 teaspoon of salt to season the rice. Then you just want to stir this until the sugar and salt are fully dissolved. To cook the rice, bring the pot to a boil over high heat, and then you want to lower the heat to low and set a timer for 15 minutes. When the timer is up, turn off the heat and let this steam for another 10 minutes undisturbed. When the rice is done, dump it into a container
with a lot of surface area such as a sushi oke or a large bowl. Spread it out a bit and pour the sushi vinegar over the rice. Now you want to alternate between a folding and cutting motion to ensure each grain of rice is evenly coated with the vinegar without mashing up the rice. You'll also want to have someone fan the rice while you stir to rapidly evaporate the excess liquid, otherwise your rice is going to end up mushy. The goal is to end up with
shiny, room temperature rice, with each individual grain still intact. For the nori, you want to
look for one that's jet black with a slight greenish hue, and even thickness. Brown or reddish black nori is old, and uneven nori can be tough. To bring out the best flavor of the nori, you can toast it over an open flame by waving all sides of it quickly and evenly over the fire. Be careful not to linger over the flame, or your nori's gonna burn. Now you wanna split the sheets in half by folding it down the center, and then folding it back the other way. The nori should break cleanly in half, but if your nori is stale, you can use scissors. For the cucumber, you want to
slice it in an angle like this. Then you can line the slices up and cut them into thin matchsticks. I'm using a Japanese cucumber today, but any small thin-skinned seedless variety such as Lebanese or Persian will work. For the avocado, trim the top off and then cut around the pit, starting from the top, working your way to the bottom, and then back up to the top again. Now you should be able to twist the halves apart. Next, you want to quarter the avocado and peel each quarter. When you're choosing avocados, look for ones that are long, because they almost always have a smaller pit than the ones that are shaped like eggs. Also, please don't squeeze avocados in the store to check for ripeness. By doing this, you're bruising them, which makes for an unpleasant surprise for the person who ends up buying it. Instead, you can remove the stem, and you want to look for a yellowish color in the navel. Green is unripe, and brown is overripe. Now we want to slice each
quarter into four or five wedges. I'm just applying some light pressure down into the right as I slice each wedge free. This slides the remaining avocado to the right so I can slice the next wedge. Don't forget to squeeze some
lemon juice on your avocado so they don't turn brown. I'm using King crab today, because it's all my local stores had, but any crab will work. To get it out of its shell, just cut the joints off each segment, and then you can hold the segment vertically jolting it out of its shell by smacking your forearms together. Our fillings are done so let's prepare the makisu by
lining it with plastic wrap. This not only keeps things hygienic, it also keeps the rice from
sticking to the bamboo mat. If you don't have a mat, you
can just use plastic wrap, but it's gonna make it harder to apply even pressure to the roll to shape it. Now for the fun part. I'm gonna start by placing a
half sheet of nori on the mat, and then I'm gonna spread the rice evenly around the nori. Be sure to dunk your hands in water before you handle the rice, or it's gonna end up sticking your fingers instead of the nori. When you're spreading the rice, you want to gently move the rice using the tips of your fingers. If you press too hard, you're going to mash the rice up, which will make your sushi gummy and gross. once you've spread the rice evenly to the edges, sprinkle on some of those toasted sesame seeds. Now we need to flip this over so the rice is on the bottom. This is the trick to making uramaki or inside out rolls. Next, I'm going to line up the crab along the edge that's closest to me, follow that up with cucumber, and then finally the avocado. Don't get greedy here and add too much filling or you won't be able to seal your rolls shut. Now I'm gonna grab the mat with my thumbs and roll the edge of the rice and nori over the fillings, holding them in with my fingers until it makes contact with
the nori on the other side. Then you just want to use the mat to roll it together so the seam is sitting on the bottom. Wet your hands and reposition the roll if you need to, and then give the roll a squeeze from the sides and the top to compress everything together and give it a nice shape. That's it! Let's have a look at that from another angle: To slice the roll, you want to use a very sharp knife that's wet. Once I've cut the roll in half, I like to line the halves up and cut each half into 4 pieces. Be sure to wipe the knife down with a wet towel between each cut so the rice doesn't stick to it. There are a couple methods of cutting rolls, but the most foolproof for most knives and skill levels is to use a rapid sawing motion without pressing down on the roll. Now let's go ahead and line these up on a plate. I like using a dark flat plate like this slate slab which
really makes the rolls pop. I'm going to add a bit of gari, or pickled young ginger, to the plate as well as a dab of wasabi, and our California Rolls are ready to serve! Created around the time that I was born, California Rolls may not be
the most traditional sushi, but what it lacks in pedigree it more than makes up for in taste. With the balance of briny umami from the crab, rich creaminess from the avocado, and a pleasant crunch from the cucumber, this modern roll pleases all of your senses, making it easy to polish off a few rolls. For a party, you can roll the rolls up to an hour in advance and keep them wrapped in plastic in a cool place, but I don't recommend storing them in the fridge because it'll make the rice
hard. Whether you're dining alone or making canapes for a cocktail party, California Rolls are an easy delicious finger food that can be made using ingredients found almost anywhere, so I
hope you'll give it a try! If you enjoyed this video, you can show your support by giving this a thumbs up and by sharing this with all your friends that love sushi. For those of you who already
like and share my videos, thank you so much, and I hope you'll consider becoming a patron on Patreon so that I can continue spending my time to show you how to cook smarter. All
right, I'm gonna go relive my childhood by having a few of these rolls, but I'll catch you in the next one! Check us out on Instagram @norecipes
