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| How to Make California Rolls! |
by Farah 'Fairy' Mahdzan 
(21-Sep-2003) | Readers Say |
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I learned to make what Americans call "California rolls" during my university student days when time to cook was scarce and I wanted a quick and relatively nourishing meal. California rolls are basically modified (read: Americanized) Japanese temaki sushi in which crab sticks are used instead of raw fish. Today I will show you how extremely easy it is to make your own California rolls. You can use whatever ingredients you like; for example you may substitute crab sticks with tuna, avocado with cucumber, etc.
To make my California rolls, I used:
To hold the ingredients together you will need seaweed wrappers or nori. You would also need to buy the sushi dipping soya sauce to enjoy your sushi when you're done.
 If you don't want to buy your sushi things separately like I did, you can buy a prepackaged sushi kit like this one, which comes with everything you need, from the seaweed wrappers down to the bamboo mat with which you use to roll the sushi. I absolutely adore this Japanese mayonnaise that comes in a very soft plastic bottle with a drawing of a baby on it. The plastic wrapper advertises it as being "food for ages 0-100," so I suppose if its claims are correct, you can feed the stuff to your newly-born child.
 I cooked rice the ordinary way but added a little bit more water to make it extra moist. There are sushi recipes which involve using Japanese vinegar to add zest to the rice's flavor, but plain Jane moist white rice was enough for my needs. Next, I fried a telur dadar (omelet) for the sushi's filling then sliced it up into strips.
(While waiting for the crab sticks to cook, I squatted outside the kitchen and snapped a picture of the stray cats that live behind our house. I bet they wanted some crab sticks.)
 After I sliced the cucumber up in strips and made sure I had all the ingredients prepared, I was ready for some serious sushi-rolling business! Here we go! The seaweed strips have a rough and smooth side, so make sure you put your fillings on the rougher side.
 Oh, don't forget the Japanese mayo! Squeeze some out next to your crabstick-rice-cucumber-omelet combination. I really like this mayo. My US housemates and I would literally fight over the mayo bottle because we'd want to extra douse our crab sticks with the stuff. Heck, sometimes our sushi would have more mayo in it than rice! Tsk tsk.
The key to successful sushi rolling is to wrap your seaweed tightly around your filling. A loosely-rolled sushi will just fall apart easily if you start eating one. (Definitely not a good way to impress your girlfriend when it's your turn to cook for the weekend!)
 To keep the sushi contents in place, just dab a bit of water onto the end of the seaweed wrapper to seal. You then pile the newly made sushi on top of its pile of sushi buddies which you have rolled up earlier! I think I made roughly 20-25 sushi rolls that one particular sushi-craving night.
 You could slice up the sushi into bitable pieces like the ones sold in the supermarket. I somehow have gotten accustomed to eating the sushi this way like I would with popiah (spring rolls).
 Dip your sushi into the special sushi dipping soya sauce and enjoy.
I however find eating California rolls with some picked ginger to be absolutely heavenly, but unfortunately while shopping I didn't come across the particular brand that I'd normally find in American Asian stores. Those juicy ginger slices certainly makes my appetite for sushi all the more crazy! :)
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RELATED STORIES:
Apart from California rolls, there are other American versions of the Japanese cuisine such as Philadelphia rolls and New York rolls! See what they're made of.
Tokyo Food Page - California rolls
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| WHAT READERS SAY ABOUT How to Make California Rolls!: |
#30. I haven't tried this yet [I just found some crab meat in our fridge] but I will! Your article was well written, it made me giggle  Posted by Yady on 29-Sep-2005, 10:03 MYT
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Some folks like to immortalize their sushi eating experience by accompanying it with a pinch of wasabi, this Japanese green paste made from some pulped plant roots or other which requires the courage of a knight to consume. It has a very sharp taste and will jolt your nose and throat to death if you're not careful about how much you down it! Just a pinch is enough to drive me over the wall so I seldom take wasabi.
thanks for the recipe.. btw, love reading your 'stories' keep it up!!! 
