I have been buying my sushi from the little Korean store just down the road from us. The last time I went in to get some, the owner lady told me that the person who makes the sushi is no longer going to be making it; so I ended up getting some from the regular grocery store, which is not fresh made like the sushi from the Korean store is, and it is more expensive, too. I decided that I would learn to make my own vegetarian sushi, and checked out some youtube videos. They showed having to have a special mat and you have to learn to roll it just right , which is just not for me. Then I found a guy who was using a sushi-making gadget, and he made it look much easier, so off to Amazon I went and started browsing the sushi gadgets, and then found one that was both easy and cheap. You just put everything into the mold, and press it down and then it even has notches so that you can slice it. The sushi from the store has cucumber, avocado, carrot, and a little surimi in it, but I will be just using the vegetables and making veggie sushi.
That's pretty slick. I've had sushi for lunch every once in a while at a Japanese restaurant near a job. The called them "Box Lunches." They were very good. Made for a nice change of pace. I've not had the sushi with raw fish in it. If I made my own sushi, the rabbit hole I would end up going down is making all those different sauces. I love me some wasabi.
I regularly make veggie sushi with sauteed tofu, carrots, avocado, celery, cucumber. I use soy wrappers as I'm not nuts about nori. The bamboo rolling mat makes it very easy. You place the mat in a locked baggie to keep it clean while being used. No biggie
I used to eat sushi a lot in past years, but not much recently since my wife now reacts to rice. One of our sons uses a bamboo mat to make his and uses salmon he has caught. Sushi simply refers to the rice, so no fish, raw or otherwise is required. I ate raw fish sushi when I lived in Japan and in California, but not since then. The husband of a co-worker at one point was Japanese, and he made wonderful sushi with cooked seafood, as he didn't trust the freshness of the stuff he bought in the U.S.
My sushi making kit arrived, so today I followed the directions, made the sushi rice, and tried my hand at making sushi. The only rice we have is some brown rice, and it did not stick together very well. The first roll that i tried came unwrapped when I pushed it down, not sure how it did that, but I think that the nori wrapper just didn’t seal well. I made enough rice for two rolls, and the second roll turned out much better, at least so far. I have not cut it or taken it out of the mold yet, and I put it in the refrigerator to chill and see if that will help set the rice. I added cucumber, sweet potato lightly steamed, a bit of pickled ginger, a couple of those tiny canned shrimp, and a few parsley leaves for extra color. Even though it fell apart, the first one tasted good, and I added a little soy sauce and wasabi mustard. It is definitely going to take me a while to get the hang of making sushi, but it was fun to do, and turned out edible. I will go to the Korean store and get some sushi rice for next time. I have seen videos where people made sushi with brown rice, but they know a whole lot more about what they were doing than I know right now.
That's good thinking to let the rice set up in the fridge. I've used this brand when I was into making stir-fry because it is sticky so is easy to pick up with chopsticks. I see they have different varieties. This is the one I used because it has added talc to make it sticky. It's easy to find in most places: When I used to buy this, the label said "Talc Added." Now it says "Sushi Rice." I guess they updated their labeling because of changing food trends. This brand has other varieties in the clear plastic bags that most rice comes in...they do not say "Sushi" or "Talc Added" on them. I bet your Korean store carries this. All my favorite Asian markets have.