Very interesting recipe for okonomiyaki variation. With addition of recipe for home-made okonomiyaki sauce!

There are two big problems with making sushi at home outside Japan. The first one: ingredients. Where in Poland can I find fresh yellowtail? Natto? (Not that I’d want to find it, but just in case...) Raw salmon or tuna that I wouldn’t be afraid to eat? Not easy. Second problem is technique. No matter how hard I try, it will never be as good as something prepared by a person who makes it every day (for years). So I gave up a long while ago on making nice looking and delicious sushi. But one day my friend from the dormitory had her birthday and we were throwing a party and the dorm’s manager wife prepared some sushi for us - and taught us how to do this really easy type of sushi that can be made absolutely everywhere and without some super skills. So here it is: the easiest, yet tasty, maki! (Friendly reminder that this is the cooking 101, “I haven’t burned anything, that’s great!” type of recipe)

Ingredients:

• sushi rice
• rice vinegar (would be great if that was the special type for sushi)
• nori
• cucumber
• carrot
• lettuce
• mayonnaise 

Preparation:

1. Cook the sushi rice the way it’s described on the product. (most product description make it look quite complicated, but it is also fine to just cook it the normal way, as shown here)
2. Cool down the rice and add rice vinegar (not much - a tea spoon is enough for a small bowl of rice)
3. Cut carrot and cucumber into thin, long pieces. 
4. Put nori on the mat (rough side facing down)
5. Put rice on the nori, covering 3/4 of it. Press it firmly along the edges. Make sure it’s not too thin- you shouldn’t be able to see through it. Making it too thick will make rolling harder though.
   
6. Put the vegetables and mayonnaise on the rice, starting about 2 cm (1 inch)  from the bottom of it. The more filling the better!
   
7. Slowly, carefully and tightly roll the sushi. Look out so as not to break the nori.
8. By the end of rolling put your fingers in the water and then smooth them over the last bit of nori. Moisture will make it more sticky and it will be easier to close the roll.
9. Using the mat you can give nice shape to the roll.
10. When the roll is ready, make sure that the ending is facing down, so it will close under its own weight. 
11. Cut into slices - any size that works for you!

Of course you can change the filling to anything you like. This is just an example of the thing I’ve eaten;)

When I came to Tokyo and asked my Japanese friends "Can I cook rice without a rice cooker?" all of them said "impossible". Since I was definitely not buying a cooker for a few months of stay, I was cooking it the same way as I do back home. So, as you can see, it is possible ;)

Miso soup is probably the most popular dish in Japan (yes I know, you were expecting sushi, but surprise!). It’s added as a side dish to almost every type of lunch meal, it can also be a part of breakfast and supper. Bonus: it may be prepared in around 10 minutes, so try it! Once again this is not an original Japanese recipe, this is a really easy, basic “Cooking 101” recipe.

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons of dashi
3 cups of water (3x 250 ml)
2,5 spoons of miso paste
65g tofu
1 spoon of dried seaweed
slices of green onion

Preparation:

1. Chop seaweed into small parts and cut tofu into cubes.
   
2. Boil water in a pot. Add dashi. Whisk until it dissolve.
   
3. Lower the heat and add tofu and seaweed.
   
4. Put miso paste into a bowl or ladle. Add a little of the dashi and whisk until it becomes smooth. 
   
5. Add miso to the soup and boil a short while on lowest heat.
   
6. Add slices of green onion and boil a little. 
   
7. Serve immediately.
   

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It’s time to start writing about how not to starve and go bankrupt at the same time. The answer is, eat like locals! But remember your roots- no need to force yourself to eat something you hate ;)

[If you are Japanese, stop reading immediately! This is not sushi-master approved recipe. This is my cooking 101, at-least-this-time-I-haven’t-set-the-kitchen-on-fire recipe with “close enough” effect. I like it, it’s my kitchen and so on]

And here comes the tuna roll sushi recipe. It is a really sushi, not some strange discovery- I’ve seen in sushi bars. It is easy to prepare, contains products that are easy to obtain and suit continental tastes. Enjoy!

Ingredients: 

• tuna in can x1
• 1/2 of small onion
• wasabi
• sushi rice
• rice vinegar (there’s a special type just for sushi)
• nori (the long and thin type
• mayonnaise 

Preparation:

1. Cook the sushi rice (I cooked it normally, just a pot and water). Remember to add rice vinegar so it will get more sticky and easier to form (one tea spoon for a bowl of rice).

2. Chop the onion in very small pieces (as small as you can). Mix it with tuna and mayonnaise. If you like it spicy you may add pepper. If you like it more mild, you can add boiled egg. Now you have tuna salad!

3. Form 5 cm (2 inch) long rolls of rice.

4. Wrap rice in nori. Put some wasabi on rice if you like.

5. Put tuna salad on the rice, inside the “basket” made of nori. (I’m pretty sure that’s not the right order, sushi masters probably put the nori at the end, but I was afraid that the salad will fall off).
6. Serve with soy sauce and gari.

Version with an egg

SOS tips:

• if the nori doesn’t want to stay together, you can use wasabu as a “glue” on the edges or just put a little water on them 
• if your nori’s shape is not the one you want, remember that kitchen scissors are your friends