how to prepare shrimp for sushi
March 6, 2010
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to (all), how-to - fundamentals Tags: shrimp, sushi
4 comments
As I wrote in a previous post, I made sushi on Valentine’s day. I usually just use salmon and tuna for sushi, but since we were watching District 9, we decided to have shrimp (because they looks like “prawns” 
) as well.
Shrimp is probably easier to get than a good block of salmon and tuna sashimi, and it is also very easy to prepare it for sushi. I’m sure a lot of people cook shrimp at home, and the only difference between regular shrimp and shrimp for sushi is that shrimp for sushi is straight and flattened. I’m not even sure if you can call this a “recipe”, but I thought it’d be nice to know a little trick like this.
How to prepare shrimp for sushi
- raw shrimp with shell (not cleaned or cooked)
- salt
– toothpicks
– skewers
*If you’re interested in making sushi rice from scratch, check out “How to make sushi rice.”
1. First you have to de-vein the shrimp. I usually use a toothpick instead of a knife. Stick a toothpick on about 1/4 inch from the back of shrimp between the first and second shell from the tail, and pull it outward.
You probably don't get vein out here, but this is to cut the vein on the tail end to make it easier to pull the rest of it on the step 2.
2. Stick a toothpick on 1/4 inch from the back of shrimp, and slowly pull it outward.
Stick a toothpick around the middle of shrimp's back.
You can just do this without doing Step 1, and you'll be able to take the most vein out, but after doing Step 1 it feels like it's easier to remove more vein without getting cut off.
I love pulling veins out of shrimp. It's so satisfying.
3. Wash the shrimp after removing the vein.
4. Stick a skewer straight into the shrimp. Don’t stick it through the tail. I cut a regular skewer in half and use it because you’ll use fewer skewers and it’s easier to fit in a pot that way. (If you’re using metal skewers, make sure you use a pot deep enough for the whole shrimp to submerge in water.)
5. Put shrimp into boiling salted water, and cook it for a couple of minutes.
You don't have to cook them for too long. Shrimp cooks pretty quick.
6. Drain the shrimp and let it cool off.
7. Gently hold the shrimp in your hand and pull the skewer out as you twist it. Then remove the shell. You usually don’t remove the tail for shrimp sushi, but if you want to remove it, that’s fine too. The tail is just for a decoration.
8. Cut the shrimp along the belly side. Be careful not to cut it all the way to the back. Flatten it and pat it dry.
And you have shrimp for sushi!
I’m certainly not a sushi chef, and I don’t really care how finished should sushi look. 
Look how chunky my sushi is!
If you have problem shaping the sushi, you can make it into “temari-zushi.” Which means “hand ball sushi.” You can just put shrimp/fish on a piece of plastic wrap, and put a bit of rice on top and wrap it tightly to make it into a ball. Because they’re all same shape and tightly held together, temari-zushi is great for kids.
Not the best looking sushi, but who cares, I'm the one who's eating it!
Half a pound (about two dozen medium shrimp) was under $5 at the market by our place. I live in Brooklyn, and I’m sure it’s a lot cheaper if you buy them at a real fish market. So even with the cost of rice, 20~24 pieces of sushi shrimp for somewhere around $ 6~7. Not too bad for a small party, huh?
How to prepare shrimp for sushi on my flickr
For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.
If you have any questions about any of my how-to’s, please feel free to leave a comment or email me!
how to make sushi rice
March 6, 2010
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to (all), how-to - fundamentals Tags: sushi
4 comments
When I posted about our “sushi night” on my blog before, I mentioned about “Sushi-noko” which was like powdered vinegar to make sushi rice. This time I decided to make sushi rice from scratch with ingredients you can easily get at a regular supermarket. Actually, it’s really not hard to make sushi rice, but the recipe requires you to work really fast. I don’t usually like cooking food that is “time-sensitive” due to my laziness, but freshly cooked sushi rice does taste better than the one made with vinegar powder.
Vinegar mix for 3 cups of sushi rice *( ) for 2 cup of sushi
- White vinegar 3 1/2 tbs (2 1/2 tbs)
- Sugar 2tbs (1tbs and 1ts)
- Salt 1 heaping ts (1ts)
*I use a regular mixing bowl, but a shallow bowl is ideal for making sushi rice because it’s easier to get the air between the rice and mix.
1. Mix the ingredients in a bowl and set it aside.
Don't worry if sugar doesn't fully dissolve right away. Most of it will dissolve while you cook rice.
2. Cook rice with a little less water (about a half of a cup less) than you usually use. In other words, cook rice “hard.” <- This is very important!
When the rice is done, take a deep breath. Because you have to move really fast from here. Step 3 – 4 have to be done in about a minute.
3. Put freshly cooked rice in a wet bowl, pour about 2/3 of the mixture of Step 2 on the rice, and start mixing rice immediately with a wet spatula with slicing motion, folding the rice over from the bottom, so the vinegar won’t stay at the bottom.
Tips: If you have an extra person and a hand fan, have the person fan the rice. I had my boyfriend as a "fan-boy." A fan-person isn't a part of this recipe, but fanning does help dry the rice a lot.
4. If the rice is not soggy, add the rest of the mixture little by little. If the rice starts to get soggy, stop adding the vinegar.
If you aren’t using the sushi rice right away, cover it with wet paper towel or wet cheese cloth until you use it.
Now you have sushi rice for sushi!
Simple but very important tips when you make sushi rice are…
* Cook rice with less water.
* Pour vinegar mixture in freshly cooked rice. (The water in vinegar will evaporate when mixed with hot rice, leaving the vinegary flavor on the rice without getting all soggy.)
* Mix the rice with a spatula with slicing motion. FAST.
I’m no definitely not a sushi chef, and whenever I make sushi, they all have different sizes and shapes. I think that’s the fun part of making sushi on your own. The only thing you want to remember is that make sure to wet your hands before you make each sushi, just like when you make rice balls. Otherwise most of the rice will just get stuck on your hands. Also, try using a little bit of rice first. The rice should be smaller than fish.
Gently hold the rice in your hand.
Put fish (shrimp in this case) on the top of the rice, and gently press it down with two fingers. Actually I think I used a little too much rice here.
If you’re interested in making shrimp sushi, check out “How to prepare shrimp for sushi.”
How to make sushi rice on my flickr
For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.
If you have any questions about any of my how-to’s, please feel free to leave a comment or email me!
Bento #73: BattleBlock Theater
February 12, 2010
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), how-to - characters (Ghibli, video game, Wall-E) Tags: BattleBlock Theater, dan paladin, the behemoth
5 comments
If you’ve seen this bento, this bento or this bento, you may already know that my boyfriend and I are huge fans of the Behemoth. I was so excited when I saw the teaser trailer for “Game #3″ (working title) last year. They’ve been working on this new game for a while. I even made something like this and this for the birthday of Dan Paladin, the art director of the Behemoth.
On Feb 1st, they finally posted a new trailer with the game’s story, and announced the title of the new game. I give you the “BattleBlock Theater” bento!
Bento #73: BattleBlock Theater bento
Created and eaten on: 2/11/2010
Actually my first drawing for my BattleBlock Theater bento was a lot more ambitious… but I stared at it for a while, and realized that there were too many characters and it wasn’t very practical… So I decided to just pick two characters I really liked, Hatty and the Golden Whale and drew another sketch.
After I put sauteed renkon (lotus root) in the bento box, then using plastic wrap I shaped a cube onigiri (rice ball) with plain rice and cooked roe inside, and I made the body with plain rice.
The curled up seaweed almost makes him look like he's smiling. Maybe he's THAT happy about the new trailer for his game.
I thought it’d be too boring to make his top hat with just rice and seaweed, so I made a small roll with fake crab meat, scallions, ham and cooked roe. I cut seaweed into a semicircle shape and put it on the top of the roll (hat). For the brim, I just rolled a little bit of rice in a long strip of seaweed and wrap that around the hat. I had to make sure that the rice was warm so the seaweed would rip.
Hatty's hat is filled with fake crab meat, ham and scallions! Who knew!
I’m not very sure about the story behind the green gem, but in the trailer, Hatty is holding a huge green gem, crying. So I sliced a broccoli stem and cut it into a shape of a gem. I wish I had a little bit more time to cut a couple of layers to stack on top of it so it’d make it more 3D.
I wish I could've worked more on this gem...
For his tears, I chopped purple cabbage, microwaved it with a little bit of water in a bowl. Then I sliced a piece of kamaboko (fish cake) and left it in it. While the kamaboko was being dyed, I moved onto the Golden Whale.
I used an egg yolk of a hard boiled egg which I had cooked the night before, and mixed it with rice. Then using plastic wrap I molded the rice into the shape of the Golden Whale and added plain rice for his stomach.
The color of Golden Whale is a bit off, but he still looks mighty happy.
The game looks like a classic platformer game where there are a lot of platforms which you can jump onto. The platforms are made with blocks so I made Japanese style hamburg patty (see “how to make Japanese style hamburg”) into cubes and cooked it. I used a cube mold for small rice balls, and cooked the cubes on a frying pan, one side at a time. I made the same cube hamburg for Super Smash Bros. Brawl bento and Wall-E bento. It’s not hard to make but it’s time consuming, so I usually make this the night before.
Not only do the cube meatballs look cute, but also they're very easy to pack in a bento and eat!
I couldn’t put all the meat cubes I wanted, so I wrapped asparagus with bacon, cooked it and put it in the bento. I filled the rest of the empty spaces with broccoli and snowpeas.
Maybe I needed a little bit of red (tomato?) in this bento.
When everything is set in place, I started working on cheese and seaweed parts. I usually make cheese and seaweed parts at the very end because cheese dries out or melts and seaweed absorbs moisture pretty fast. I used sliced cheese for the band around the hat on Hatty and for Golden Whale’s mouth. Then I took the dyed kamaboko out of the bowl, washed it and cut it for his tears. For their eyes and Hatty’s mouth I cut seaweed.
Maybe I soaked kamaboko in purple cabbage juice too long. His tears were close to purple.
When I finished the bento I realized that the whole bento was a little too green. So I used a star shaped cutter to cut out cheese, carrot and broccoli stem and sprinkled them around the bento.
Yeah, I cheated and used a cutter.
I actually woke up late on the day I made this bento, but because I had sauteed renkon, cube-hamburg and hard boiled egg already cooked the night before, I was able to finish it. I still wished I could’ve put more colors or different variations of green though. Supposedly there will be tons of characters (customizable!) so I don’t think I’ll ever run out of characters to make a bento of. =D
I don’t usually post videos on my blog but I’ll make an exception for this. (No Golden Whale in this trailer. Check out the channel of the Behemoth on youtube more trailers!)
Hatty:
- rice ball/cube with cooked roe inside, seaweed, kamaboko
- rice, fake crab meat, scallion, ham, seaweed, cheese (for his hat)
Golden Whale:
- rice, egg yolk, seaweed, cheese
Meat cube:
- ground beef, onion, egg, bread
Stars:
- cheese, broccoli stem, carrot
Other food:
- asparagus wrapped with bacon
- broccoli
- snowpeas
- renkon
For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.
non-bento #20 & How to make Slime Marshmallows
December 20, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog - non bento, how-to (all), how-to - characters (Ghibli, video game, Wall-E) Tags: Dragon Quest, marshmallow, Slime
4 comments
My company does a potluck for its Christmas party. It’s fun that you get to taste the dishes cooked by people you know. This year, one of my friends/graphic designer at the company decided to make a recipe book of everyone’s potluck food. I thought of making Totoro cream puffs, Domo-kun chocolate covered marshmallows, but I wanted to make new kyara-sweets. (Kyara-sweets mean “Character themed sweets.”)
Even though I don’t eat sweet stuff that much, I always wanted to make marshmallows. I was going to make some elaborate marshmallows, but since I had to make at least dozens of them I had to pick a simpler character. As I was looking through recipes, the one that looks like Hershey’s kisses reminded me of Slimes from Dragon Quest. (“Dragon Warrior” in English) So I decided to make Slimes! NOTE: Sorry for the quality of the pictures for the How-to. I shot them myself since I made this when my boyfriend wasn’t home. >_<
Click to continue reading "non-bento #20 & How to make Slime Marshmallows"
Momofuku’s Bossam
December 16, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to (all), how-to - fundamentals Tags: bossam, hungry nation, Momofuku
4 comments
Christmas is coming! So I decided to do a post about what I did for Thanksgiving before it’s way too late.
Since I couldn’t get in touch with my cat sitter this Thanksgiving I stayed at home while my boyfriend was back home in Boston. One night I couldn’t sleep so I was watching non-stop NY at around 4 in the morning. (I don’t have cable) And a program called Hungry Nation came on. One of the segments on Hungry Nation is called “Working class foodies.” It’s about two siblings cooking affordable yummy food. On that particular episode, they were making “Working class Momofuku – Bossam.”
It made me droll, and I had to make it. (sorry for the poor picture quality. I shot them.)
I burned it a little bit, but it was still so moist inside!
Click to continue reading "Momofuku’s Bossam"
How to make Max
October 17, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to (all), how-to - characters (Ghibli, video game, Wall-E) Tags: Maurice Sendak, Where The Wild Things Are
4 comments
[How to make Max from Where the Wild Things Are] (without the crown)
- rice
- ham (or bologna, turkey, etc…)
- sliced cheddar cheese
- seaweed
– cupcake cup (I used foil cupcake cups, but if you need to microwave your food, use a paper cupcake cup instead. I’ve tried it, and the paper cup handled the moisture pretty well.)
– hole punch
– straw
– scissors
Click to continue reading "How to make Max"
How to make Moishe
October 16, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to (all), how-to - characters (Ghibli, video game, Wall-E) Tags: Maurice Sendak, Where The Wild Things Are
1 comment so far
[How to make Moishe from Where the Wild Things Are]
- rice
- ham (or bologna, turkey, etc…)
- sliced cheddar cheese
- seaweed
– cupcake cup (I used foil cupcake cups, but if you need to microwave your food, use a paper cupcake cup instead. I’ve tried it, and the paper cup handled the moisture pretty well.)
– hole punch
– straw
– scissors
Click to continue reading "How to make Moishe"
How to make Bernard
October 15, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to (all), how-to - characters (Ghibli, video game, Wall-E) Tags: Maurice Sendak, Where The Wild Things Are
1 comment so far
[How to make Bernard from Where the Wild Things Are]
- rice
- black sesame seed
- seaweed
- sliced cheese
- radish or white-ish sliced cheese or kamaboko (fish cake), or even left over hard boiled egg white from mashed potato. In other words, you can use any white food!
– cupcake cup (I used foil cupcake cups, but if you need to microwave your food, use a paper cupcake cup instead. I’ve tried it, and the paper cup handled the moisture pretty well.)
– hole punch
– straw
– scissors
– round plastic cap
Click to continue reading "How to make Bernard"
How to make Emil
October 15, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to (all), how-to - characters (Ghibli, video game, Wall-E) Tags: Maurice Sendak, Where The Wild Things Are
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[How to make Emil from Where the Wild Things Are]
- mashed yam
- seaweed
- sliced cheese
- radish or white-ish sliced cheese or kamaboko (fish cake), or even left over hard boiled egg white from mashed potato. In other words, you can use any white food!
– cupcake cup (I used foil cupcake cups, but if you need to microwave your food, use paper cupcake cup instead. I’ve tried it, and the paper cup handled the moisture pretty well.)
– hole punch
– straw
– round plastic cap
Click to continue reading "How to make Emil"
How to make Tzippy
October 14, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to (all), how-to - characters (Ghibli, video game, Wall-E) Tags: Maurice Sendak, Where The Wild Things Are
1 comment so far
[How to make Tzippy from Where the Wild Things Are]
- spaghetti
- ketchup (or tomato sauce)
- ham (or bologna, turkey, etc…)
- sliced cheddar cheese
- seaweed
– cupcake cup (I used foil cupcake cups, but if you need to microwave your food, use a paper cupcake cup instead. I’ve tried it, and the paper cup handled the moisture pretty well.)
– hole punch
– straw
– scissors
– round plastic cap
