Cooking Challenge 2: California Maki

Maki is not my favorite dish. But since, it's my habibi's fave I decided to learn how to make one. I can still recall when I had my first taste of Maki. Back in college, my friend Donna, now living in Dubai, bought one and had me taste it. I bravely took a bite. Instantly, I tasted the mango, felt strange about it and decided that would be the last time I'd eat one. Then my habibi came and re-introduced me to the dish. Strangely, I loved it. So here is my attempt to make the dish my habibi loved. We decided to have an Japanese themed dinner with the dish. I also cooked poached salmon, recipe below.

Ingredients


Baboo mat wrapped in Clingfilm
2 sheets seaweed paper
sushi rice (refer below for the recipe)
Thinly sliced mango
Imitation crab meat
Sesame seeds
Wasabe
Soy Sauce
Calamansi

Procedure:

1. On the bamboo mat, lay the seaweed paper then cover with sushi rice leaving about 1/2 inch seaweed without rice at the bottom. Press lightly so the rice will stick into place. You may deep your fingers on a bowl of water so the rice won't stick.



2. Turn the seaweed paper and rice over.

3. Place crab meat and mango at about 1 inch away from the bottom.




4. Then carefully, start to roll the mat. Hold firmly to form a roll. Continue rolling until the seaweed and rice is compressed into a roll.









5. Unroll the mat.

6. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

7. Cut with cold knife.

8. Serve with soy sauce mixed with wasabe and calamansi.



Sushi Rice (This recipe can make 4 sushi rolls)

Ingredients:

2 cups uncooked rice
water

Sushi Vinegar
1 1/2 tbsp. rice vinegar
1 tbsp. caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Procedure:

I've read that the secret to a perfect maki or sushi roll is its sushi rice. I thoroughly washed the uncooked rice thoroughly and let it drain for about 45 minutes. Instead of cooking it the conventional way, I cooked it in a rice cooker. :D I'm not that confident in cooking rice. Once the rice is cooked, I prepared the vinegar mixture.


Poached Salmon

This is my second time to cook this dish. I got intrigued with this dish when we ate at Ikea Restaurant. When I ordered for a salmon, I saw that their salmon were just sitting on a container with clear liquid. I'm sure that it's just not water so I searched for its recipe in the net. I found one at elise.com. It was so easy to do. Anyone without cooking skills can do this. I had some leeks and green onions left overs so I used it as a substitute for onions.

Ingredients:

2 cuts of salmon
1/2 cup rice wine
1/2 cup water
slices of onions
fresh parsley
salt
ground pepper


1. Combine all ingredients in a pan. Bring to boil.







2. Place salmon, skin down. Put salt and pepper on top of salmon. Cover and cook for 5 minutes.