May 6th 2015: Sushi Making in Framingham

My friend and I spent the day at the Natick Mall, going to Paul Bakery for some food. I did not know they had a store here as well, much less 2.

This time, we got the Canele (traditionally shaped rum accented crepe), the Noix de Coco Croissant (croissant filled with homemade coconut pastry cream), the Beignet Fruits Rouges (oven baked donut filled with red fruit puree)

and the Toscan (prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, tomato, lettuce, and pesto spread on a traditional baguettine).

I wasn't too much a fan of the rum flavored cake, and the Toscan was just alright, although the rest of the stuff was pretty good.

We did not have dinner tonight as we had a sushi making class to go to at Samba Steak and Sushi in Framingham.

We arrived a little early, allowing me to take pictures of the ingredients and equipment we were to use tonight.

When the class started, after the instructor's demonstration,

 we lined up to get our ingredients to use for our first sushi roll.

With a sheet of nori, the rougher side facing up, the ball of rice is placed in  one corner of it,

and spread thinly over the entire piece of nori leaving no sign of green. Sesame seed and tobiko are optional at this point.

The entire thing is then flipped over,

and the piling of ingredients begins, leaving 2 finger widths of space on each side of the pile and the edge of the nori.

From here, pinching one long edge of the nori, the nori is then lifted and wrapped around the filling, sealing it in the end with a slight inward tuck to completely encase the filling.

Using the bamboo provided, each end of the roll is shaped and tucked in,

then the entire roll is shaped all at once.

At this stage, a knife is used to cut the roll into 6 pieces.

Doing this was much harder than I thought, and my sushi did not turn out quite right, though still edible.

At least my friend did a much better job of it.

I also tried making a roll with the seaweed outside,

but put too much filling in the end and rendered it unable to coll up completely. At least I made it look good on camera.

My friend did better there as well, and brought some of hers home for leftovers.

Looking forward to the manual that should arrive in a few days time to enlighten us on how to cook the rice.