Futomaki Sushi is popular in Japan. My mother makes this at New Years day or any celebrate occasion. Or when she invites some guests to her house, sometimes she makes this. When I was a child and have school sports day, my mom makes this so we will have lunch together at the school ground. It is almost finger food, easy to pick and eat. It is made by rice and other things together, fill you up. It is usually colorful and pretty, but most of all, it is very tastey!!
Futomaki (太巻?, “thick, large or fat rolls”) is a large cylindrical piece, with nori on the outside. A typical futomaki is three or four centimeters (1.5 in) in diameter. They are often made with two or three fillings that are chosen for their complementary tastes and colors. During the Setsubun festival, it is traditional in Kansai to eat uncut futomaki in its cylindrical form, where it is particularly called ehou-maki (恵方巻, lit. happy direction rolls). Futomaki is often vegetarian, but may include non-vegetarian toppings such as tiny fish roe and chopped tuna.
You can read more from Wikipedia – futomaki.
You can put any other ingredients than what I introduce here, if you have any good idea. This is what I choose this time.
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Ingredients
About 4 rolls
15 pieces Shiitake
1 Carrots
1 Avocado
1 (3 eggs I used) Egg omelettes
1 can Tuna can
3 TBS Mayonnaise
3 C of uncooked rice Sushi Rice (see this page)
How to make shiitake:
Instruction
1 You will leave dried shiitake in the water until it soften. When it become soft, cut like this picture.
2 Put Dashi in the pot and sugar, soy sauce, mirin, sake, and salt and shiitake.
3 Put high heat until it boils and turn the heat to low.
4 Cook it until the dashi is gone like picture above.
5 Julian carrots. You can slice vegetables by this very thin. I will recommend to get mandarin if you are looking for to buy one for your Japanese cooking. This make Sashimi Tsuma (Daikon) very easy! Of course you can use this for salad.
5 After you julian carrots, put in the bowl with 1TBS vinegar and 1TSP sugar together. If you have put sesame seeds. leave it about 10 min and mix well. Then dump the vinegar and squeeze the carrots so that there is no remaining vinegar. You don’t use watery carrots.
6 When you make tuna and mayonnaise, dump the can tuna water well. Then mix with mayonaise. If it is too watery, when you make sushi roll, too much water and whole sushi will be watery. It make easily break Nori.
7 Make Egg omelettes from this page and cut long and skinny way (picture below). This time, I use those ingredients below to my Futomaki.
This is how to roll sushi
1 Put rice ball on the Nori (sea weeds) and spread on the Nori.
2 Front of you and other side of the nori, you should leave the space (not spread rice) about 1/3 inch.
3 When you spread rice, DO NOT tighten the rice.
4 You need spread rice softely with air. Do not pack the rice on Nori.
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5 The middle picture I spread the ingredients so you can see I put them all.
However, when you are ready to roll (Picture on the right), I put all ingredients make a mount (pile up) so I can roll easily.
You need to buy this sushi mat, it is called sunoco.
6 You roll from your side. Left picture, where my index finger is the end of the Nori which is the edge of the sushi. I am wrapping all ingredients in my palm. The edge of the sushi is almost end of the ingredients line. Roll into the ingredients.
7 You move Sunoko so as roll the sushi the end of the other side.
8 Make whole thing roll and put a little bit pressure to make it round. Do not push too hard.
9 Finish rolling
Tip for cutting the sushi:
Wet and clean your knife each time when you cut the roll sushi. Use very sharp knife – see my knife section. Do not cut slowly. If you cut slowly, you break nori and sushi will be break open. Cut quickly, that is why you really need a sharp good knife.
Tip for Nori:
There are different kind of Nori. Sushi Hane or Sushi Nori is good for sushi. Usually those are cheap kind compare of other kind of Japanese Nori. It is thicker than expensive Nori. I don’t know why less is more (expensive) but thin Nori texture is more easy to eat (it means Nori is not stay in your mouth. thin nori is disolved quickly, easy to swallow. more crunchy than thicker Nori) I think the texture of nori makes price different.
Because wrapping the rice and other ingredients, thicker nori is stronger. For the beginner, it is easy to handle them.
I usually serve this way, sometimes make a pyramid. Use soy sauce and wasabi a side and put them before eat it. However, Futomaki has usually already taste to it so you don’t need to put soy sauce. You can enjoy sweetness of shiitake. Sweet Japanese teriyaki like taste and mayonnaise is very good harmony together. You can enjoy this great Futomaki taste!
Carla @ Yorkshire Pantry says
Sushi seems complicated to make, but your instructions and photos are clear enough to inspire me to give it a go.
Yuri says
Thank you Yorkshire Pantry.
if you make it, let me know how it goes.