Temaki

A cone rolled at the table by each diner, where the nori has to stay crisp until the last second.

Fish, Shellfish. Not vegetarian — contains fish, shellfish.

Ingredients

to lay out

8 sheets nori, halved
600 g prepared sushi rice, as on its own page
200 g tuna or salmon, in strips
8 prawns, cooked
1 cucumber, in long batons
1 avocado, sliced
100 g takuan, in batons

to season

4 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons wasabi
4 shiso leaves
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

Method

ROLLED BY THE DINER, ONE AT A TIME, and that is not a serving suggestion but the method. The makizushi on this site is rolled on a mat, pressed and cut, and it holds for an hour. This cannot be made in advance at all -- nori meets rice and is soft in about ninety seconds.
SO THE NORI STAYS SEPARATE AND DRY, in a covered box or under a cloth, away from everything wet. That is the single thing that decides whether this works.
TOAST THE NORI briefly over a flame or a dry pan, shiny side down, until it crackles. It makes the crispness last a little longer and sharpens the flavour.
HALF SHEETS, not whole. A whole sheet makes a cone too big to eat in two bites and it falls apart in the hand.
FAR LESS RICE THAN A ROLL -- a heaped tablespoon per cone, smeared across the LEFT THIRD of the sheet only and not pressed. Too much rice and the cone will not close.
Keep the rice at room temperature and covered with a damp cloth, or the surface dries and will not stick to itself.
Fillings cut LONG and laid diagonally, pointing from the top left corner down, so they sit along the axis of the cone and stick out of the top.
ROLL FROM THE BOTTOM LEFT CORNER, bringing it up over the filling and then round, and it forms a cone rather than a tube. Rolling straight across gives a cylinder that empties from both ends.
Seal the tip with a grain of rice crushed under a finger.
Eaten immediately, by the person who rolled it, with the soy and wasabi mixed in a small dish each.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Japan · All recipes