12. California Roll

One might think that after over 4 decades of popularity in this country that the stigma over sushi in America would be gone by now.  But many people attach themselves to dumber things for longer than that.  So whaddya gonna do?  The big stigma over sushi is the false  belief that sushi is raw fish.  Yes, there are many kinds of sushi that involve raw fish but sushi does not mean raw fish.  An abundance of sushi types exist that involve ingredients other than raw fish.  Actually I could write volumes about sushi, but I'm going to keep it as basic as I can.  There are plenty of places to go on the internet and books in the library to explore the vast details.  The one thing we can really focus on here is that sushi involves very fresh ingredients that are quite tasty and healty.

Part of the problem with the stigma surrounding sushi is the sushi culture in America.  Back in the 80s sushi became popular with yuppies (You know, Richard Gecko fans), so ever since then the idea is that the more expensive the sushi, the better.  Now with the artistry of the preparation and even some of the ingredients these high prices are justified, but quite a lot of what people are charged for sushi, even in the grocery store kiosks, are a blind ripoff.  When you make your own sushi at home you'll see what a horrible scam it is when you can see how much of it you can make for less than ten bucks.

Another part of sushi culture in America that adds to its stigma is nerds and geeks.  As a nerd and a geek myself I know this quite well because not only am I up to my armpits in nerds and geeks, but I am also guilty of the crime of perpetuating the stigma of sushi.  Nerds are as obsessed with Japan as stoners are obsessed with Amsterdam.  Nerds can't resist a country whose culture loves to make things organized, regimented, and complicated and for some reason the result is ninjas, sexy cartoons, and giant monsters.  Although it's not very polite, Americans associate Asians with intelligence, especially Japan.  So the more excruciatingly obscure the details a nerd can come up with the smarter he thinks he looks.  So they will bore you to death with details about sushi and have no problem with making it seem more complicated, disgusting, and exotic than it is just to appear smart or unique.

So I'm going to send the purists running with the California Roll.  This roll of sushi was developed in the early 70s in the first American sushi bar as a type of sushi that might appeal more to Americans and it did.  The California roll is the sushi that made it popular all over the rest of the country.  So take a breath and relax, because there is no raw fish involved with this one.  It is also one of the "inside out" rolls which rolls the rice on the outside rather than the nori (seaweed).  It was thought that this method would make the seaweed more palatable to Americans.

Here's all the stuff you'll need (hand dipping bowl not pictured).

Sushi Rice (Sushi-Meshi)
When it comes to most sushi, rice is very important.  Once you know how to properly prepare sushi rice then most of your battle is fought and you can make several types of sushi.  First, you're going to need short grained rice.  I have never seen this stuff sold at a standard supermarket, even stores that sell everything else for sushi (what a bunch of assholes), however, you can find it quite easily and for a reasonable price at most Asian food markets, they should be conveniently marked sushi rice or sushi meshi.  The short grained rice available in America is grown in California.  They don't import it from Japan, so don't bother looking for Japanese short grained rice, unless you're in Japan.  While you're at the Asian food market check out the prices on their sushi stuff, it may be cheaper than your supermarket's prices.  


This recipe is for one quantity of sushi rice. 

2 cups sushi rice
2 cups water
2 Tablespoons rice vinegar
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon Kosher salt


Place the rice into a mixing bowl and cover with cool water.  Swirl the rice in the water and pour off.  Repeat until the water runs clear.  The recipe said to do this 2 or 3 times, but I did it 6 and the water wasn't completely clear, but it seemed to work fine.  


Place the rice and 2 cups of water into a medium saucepan and place over high heat.  Bring to a boil uncovered.  Once it begins to boil reduce the heat to the lowest setting and cover.  Cook for 15 minutes.  Remove from heat and let stand covered for ten minutes.  

Mix the vinegar, sugar,  and salt into a small bowl.  Use a flat wooden spoon to cut into rice one way, then the other.  Don't stir it or mash it.  While cutting into the rice add some of the vinegar mixture a little at a time.  Also fan with a paper plate to cool the rice. If you have a helper have them fan the rice as you cut into it.  Do this for about ten minutes until the rice until it is about room temperature.  

Here's a bowl of prepared sushi rice.

California Roll
1 medium avocado, peeled, pitted, and sliced into 1/4 thick pieces
4 Table spoons of lemon juice
4 sheets of nori (These are the "seaweed sheets."  You can find these in some supermarkets but most Asian food stores carry it.)
1 batch of sushi rice
1/3 cup of toasted sesame seeds
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and cut into matchstick like pieces
4 crabsticks
Pickled ginger for serving
Wasabi for serving
soy sauce for serving

One thing you want to keep in mind while making your sushi is to keep your hands as wet as possible, mostly to keep the rice from sticking to them to much.  The best way to do this is prepare a water dish with 2 cups of water, 2 tablespoons of rice vinegar, and floating a slice of lemon on top.

Sprinkle the lemon juice over the cut avocado to prevent browning.

Cover a bamboo rolling mat (another thing on the list for your Asian food market trip) with plastic wrap.  Cut nori sheets in half crosswise.  Lay one sheet of nori, shiny side down, on the plastic covered bamboo mat.  Wet your fingers with your water and spread about a half cup of sushi rice evenly onto the nori, leaving some nori exposed on the side closest to you and away from you.  Sprinkle the rice with sesame seeds.

See this isn't raw fish.  It isn't even real crab.  This stuff is cooked before packaging and ready to eat.  I got this in the fish department at Giant Eagle.  It's quite tasty and easy to work with.

Here's what the fillings look like cut and ready to roll!

 
Turn the sheet over so that the rice side is down.  If you did the rice right it should be really sticky and turning over the sheet shouldn't be a problem.  If you rice falls apart you may have done something wrong or you're too rough.  (Remember, impatience is a bad ingredient in cooking.)  Keeping in mind that you're going to make 8 rolls, so take about 1/8 of the cucumber, crab, and avocado and place them in the middle of the sheet.

The rice is on the bottom and the ingredients are placed on the mat ready to roll.  The fillings are placed in the middle.

 
Make sure the stuff is near the edge of the mat closest to you.  Grab that edge.  While keeping the fillings in place with your fingers roll it into a tight cylinder.  Be sure to take out the part of the mat that starts to tuck into your roll before completing the rolling process.  Use the mat to shape the cylinder before unrolling it.  Unroll it and set aside, cover with a clean damp cloth.  

This is about what your roll should look like at this point. 

You can clean your mat with a clean damp cloth but if it remains sticky change the wrap.  Repeat this process until all the rice has been used, then cut each roll into 6 pieces.  When cutting use a gentle sawing action.  If you try to chop down you'll end up with deformed sushi.  Serve with pickled ginger as a side, wasabi (japanese horse radish), and soy sauce or dipping.  Although you may see people eating it with chopsticks, Sushi is considered a finger food so don't worry.

I made this for under ten bucks!  This much sushi at a Japanese restaurant would probably call for another mortgage on your house.

My inspirational hero for this post is Richard Dawkins not only because of his innovations in evolutionary biology and as a popularizer of science, but for his bravery as an open atheist who challenges creationism and intelligent design being taught as science and makes bold statements about religion in his controversial book The God Delusion.  Sometimes somebody needs to say it, and Dawkins is the guy who will do it.

  
o

11. Eggs Over Easy

In my last blog entry, 10. Poached Eggs, I covered a lot of stuff about eggs.  I don't want to repeat myself too much if I can help it.  So, if you haven't read the first article about eggs I recommend clicking over to the entry and at least giving it a skim to catch up.  I'll just write this assuming you know what I've already written there and get on with it.

Eggs Over Easy are considered soft cook eggs, which means that they are lightly cooked and the yolk is still runny when they are done.  There are some precautions you should consider when cooking soft cooked eggs, so go to the link above if you're not aware of the caveat.

For the most part, cooking eggs is simple, the worst part of cooking soft cooked eggs is the delicate job of ensuring the yolks don't break, but, unless you have some amazing agility, you're probably going to break a few yolks trying this.  It just takes practice, I don't believe in born talent.  Even the most famous masters of their craft from cooks to painters developed their skills over time.  Just have some patience and eventually you'll experience the awesome satisfaction of making great eggs over easy.

My mother originally taught me how to make eggs over easy, she is a master at cooking these eggs and even she breaks the occasional yolk.  However, when she makes them right, and she often does, they're great.  Actually, she taught me quite well, but, I don't know how it happened, I lost my knack for it over the years.  It's strange how I was able to make a better fried egg at 15 than almost forty. So I consulted a book by Alton Brown.  His method involves flipping the eggs in the pan like flapjacks rather than using a spatula.  In fact, he advises against using a spatula at all!

Although the pan flipping method defies logic for me, I figured if it's good enough for Alton Brown, it's good enough for me.  So I gave it a shot.  Actually, this blog is the result of many weeks of practice and thanks to my ten year old helper we got some cool shots of the egg flipping.  

First, I start with my ten inch non stick frying pan.  You may want to use a skillet, but that might seem heavy for the flipping.  Maybe a small one will work, I don't own a skillet so I'm not going to deal with that now.  If I had my druthers, I would cook this in a smaller pan, if I owned one.  It just seems like the eggs would be easier to manage.  By the way, I almost always give my pans a shot with olive oil non-stick cooking spray.  Even though I'm going to use oil I just seem to have shitty luck with food sticking to my pans, that's probably because I own cheap shit.  Back when I played an adult on TV and could afford better stuff I didn't think much about it and just got some cheap stuff, thinking it's all the same.  That's bullshit!  With some things you really do get what you pay for, and if you disagree with me you're probably a cheap ass who owns a lot of crappy shit.  Either way, you don't have to buy the most expensive stuff, but don't skimp either.  

I cook my eggs with about 2 tablespoons of olive oil.  You may want to cook with butter, and all my chef heroes say that cooking with unsalted butter is the best.  I'll just have to take their word for it, because this concept is new to me.  I've always used the butter in the fridge and we never bought unsalted butter, but I'm willing to give it a try.  Now Alton Brown recommends using one tablespoon of unsalted butter, but if you have sticking problems like me, I don't think two will hurt.
So, whatever and how much you decide on, you have to heat up your oil or butter over a medium heat.  You want it good and hot but don't wait until your oil smokes or your butter scorches.  Experience cooking the eggs will tell you when is a good time to drop your eggs.

When you crack your egg and drop it into the pan, make sure you get it as close to the part of the pan away from you as possible, like the photo above, then tilt the pan forward as soon as possible so the egg pools in the front.  Hold the tilted pan directly over the heat so the egg whitens quickly.  This prepares if for optimum flipping.  I just drop one egg at a time, my man Alton can do two, but I'm not quite there yet.

  Count slowly to ten, then lower the pan and count to ten again.  Jiggle the pan around so the egg comes loose and slides around the pan a little.  This is when you know you're on the right track.  If the egg is sticking and you feel compelled to loosen it with a spatula, then you probably did something wrong.  Now give the egg some salt and pepper and let it set for about a minute.  I usually take this time to toss out my shells, discard my egg cracking plate, and wash my hands.  When you come back to your egg it should be white with a little bit of clear stuff around the yolk, the edges may even be getting brown.  Slide it around a little and get ready to flip.

Look at that awesome shot!  I can hardly believe a ten year old took that.  So what you have to do is, in as fluid of a motion as possible push the pan forward while snapping the pan upward.  Then try to bring the pan up to meet the egg to avoid yolk breakage.  Fortunately this one did not break.

Hey, the little guy actually got two good shots, so I had to show them both to you.  This was another success!

 When you flip your egg, the clear white may splatter a little but that doesn't mean the yolk is broken, you'll see the yolk soon enough if it breaks.  Now, if the yolk isn't broken, you'll want to slowly count to ten again and slide your egg around to see if it does the same thing before you flipped it.  Now flip it back.  It should be easier this time.  Now you can slide it on to a warm plate or on top of toast or...

Thomas' Betterstart Light Multigrain English Muffins which are highly recommended by the guys who write the Eat This, Not That! books because they're low in calorie and high in fiber.

Here they are on the muffins.  Now, maybe it's because I use a little bit more oil than the recipe, I don't always just slide the egg on to the muffin from the pan because I end up dripping the oil onto the muffin or the plate and if I'm cooking a second egg I don't want to lose that oil either.  I carefully use a spatula.  At this point it shouldn't be too hard after all the sliding and flipping.

I like to break the yolks and spread them all over the egg and muffin while they're still runny.  Then I cut pieces from the outside heading in so I can dip the pieces in the yolk and soak up the yolk on the plat.  I love dunking.

My inspirational hero for this entry is Steve Irwin, who you may know better as the Crocodile Hunter.  I was deeply saddened by his death but I admire the amazing life he led and he seemed to love every minute of the short life he had.  His drive and attitude made him a success and shows how far people can go if they really have passion for something.  His family and everyone who knew him never seemed to have a single bad thing to say about him.  He caused some controversy but never said anything bad about anyone else.  He had his detractors but they were probably more jealous than anything.  The man lived his dream and that's pretty damn cool. 

10. Poached Eggs

All my hero chefs claim that mastering cooking is mastering cooking eggs.  Folklore tells us that scientific studies are constantly back and forth about eggs and whether or not they're healthy.  This was true a few decades ago.  However, aside from the occasional salmonella recall, the verdict seems to be that eggs are not bad for you.  In fact studies are showing that eating eggs contributes to weight loss and are good for people with diabetes.  This is great news to me because I love eggs and just about in every form they're cooked, which seems to be countless ways.  

While there is some risk of salmonella with eggs, there are some precautions you should take.  One is to wash your hands immediately after handling raw eggs.  Eating raw or soft cooked eggs with a runny yolk may have some more risk than hard cooked eggs or scrambled.  I love soft cooked eggs, so I hazard a bit of a risk, but aside from risking possible salmonella, the soft cooked eggs are quite healthy.  

As another precaution try cracking your eggs on a flat surface, like a clean plate, instead of on the edge of a pan or bowl.  The less of the outer shell you crack into the egg, the better and there's less risk of breaking the yolks.  Breaking the yolk is the last thing you want to do when making soft cooked eggs so really focus on your egg breaking technique, each break is practice, and don't half-ass it.  I cook eggs all the time and still run into some trouble, they're just so delicate.  So, when I do make a successful egg dish, I feel quite accomplished.   
  
The first time I had a poached egg was just a couple of years ago at Uncle John's Pancake House in Toledo.  My mom never cooked them for me when I was a kid and for whatever other reasons they just didn't arrive on my plate.  I heard of them, but I had no idea what they were or even what they looked like. But when I tried them, I immediately fell in love with them.

Apparently poaching comes from the French word for pocket, which is kind of what happens when you cook the egg and the white becomes a pocket around the yolk.   Some recipes call for a precise amount of water in a specific sized pan.  Well, I've found that you probably want three to four inches of water to work.  Any deeper than that and you may have problems.  I recommend a larger pan for more eggs.  This is just to keep the whites from combining.

This sauce pan, filled to just over half way, works pretty good for me for two eggs.  I haven't tried more than two at a time yet.

Place the water on a high heat.  When bubbles begin to break the surface add 1 teaspoon of vinegar and a teaspoon of kosher salt.  Regular-ass white vinegar is the only kind I've ever used so, I don't know if other kinds of vinegar work the same or not.  My books don't mention it.  Maybe it's common knowledge and I'm just ignorant of it or something.  The hell if I know.

Crack your eggs into small bowls, this is so you can pour the eggs into the pan as close to the surface of the water as possible.  I've used small bowls and even saucers before, but these neat little Glad storage containers work very nicely.

 

Drop the eggs into the water as close to the surface as possible, one at a time.  The vinegar is supposed to keep the egg white from going everywhere, but I probably need more work on this part because they usually look like the photo above.  I tweak them a little with my slotted spoon just to keep them from combining, but you don't want to mess around with them too long or the yok will harden and you don't want that.  When they look like this remove from the heat, put a lid on the pan, and wait three minutes.

When the three minutes are up, gently remove the eggs, one at a time from the water with a slotted spoon and try to drain as much water as possible.  I put them on toasted English muffins, but they can go on toast and are recommended for salads, though I never tried them that way.  I tried them over Ramen noodles once.

I use Thomas' Light Multi-Grain English Muffins because Mens' Health Magazine and the Eat This, Not That! people have rated them the healthiest breakfast bread.

I break open both yolks and spread it over the egg and muffin, then sprinkle some kosher salt and fresh ground pepper over it and enjoy!

My inspirational hero for this entry is The Mighty Stephen Hawking.  He is an innovator of theoretical physics and cosmology, most noted is his work in quantum gravity and black holes.  He is also a popularizer of science.  One of his many books, A Brief History of Time, is best known world wide for putting modern cosmology in layman's terms.  He's published several other books, appeared in several documentary movies, and created and appeared in television shows about the science of the universe.  He's also appeared on shows like Star Trek: The Generation, The Simpsons, and Futurama, because the writers of these shows are huge fans of Hawking.  Most of this he achieved while suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) for forty-seven years.  This disease has slowly debilitated his physical body and he became known for an electronic synthesizer he uses to speak.  He has used a small handpiece to operate his synthesizer, but no longer can, so he uses a device that follows his eye movements.  At this point he's almost completely paralyzed, but has a new groundbreaking cosmology book about to be released called The Grand Design.