My Love for Sushi <3

Sooo... My husband and I (yes, I am married) have a love for sushi. But our most favorite of them is SEARED SALMON. Now, most people don't know or never heard of this type of seared salmon because I am not talking about pan-searing fish fillet. I'm talking about sashimi-cut salmon that's seared using a handheld BLOW TORCH! Yup! If you live in the west coast (where we're from), you know what this delicious goodness looks like. If you live in the south (where we currently live), no one knows what you're talking about! We've asked and asked restaurants if they have seared salmon but they don't! They don't even know about using a blow torch to sear fish! What is that madness?!!! Sooooo, our solution to this problem is to make homemade sushi! 

I've actually made homemade sushi rolls several times before. When we lived in Seattle, I even came up with our own sushi roll called "Lei'N'Dek Roll". *;) But today's post won't be about the other sushi rolls I've made in the past. You can look at my Instagram account (@jrcheflei) for that. OR I actually started my own hashtag (#jrcheflei) under my personal account but that's set to private. Anyway... about tonight's sushi...

It wasn't as fancy as my other creations. I usually make shrimp tempura, tempura crunchy flakes, and I also use a lot of fresh tuna sashimi too. BUUUT. I worked with what I had... which (tonight) was crab meat, pieces of tuna, a huge slab of sashimi-grade salmon, and MANGOES!! (My mom gave me a bag of sweet mangoes this weekend, which is my absolute favorite fruit!!) 

So anyhooooow... I never took a picture of the seared salmon nigiri I made. But I did take a picture of the two sushi rolls  created this evening ! 

THAT, my friend, is seared salmon on top!!! This sushi roll is a modified California roll. It has cucumber, avocado, crab meat, AND mangoes! On top is seared salmon with green onions and a squeeze of my homemade spicy mayo sauce and a dash of my homemade unagi (eel) sauce. TAH DAH!!! <3

Now here's the next creation...

BAM! This roll was inspired by a combination of a rainbow roll and dragon roll that is commonly seen at majority of sushi restaurants in America. Instead of tuna, shrimp, etc on the outside though... I used avocado, mango, and salmon. AGAIN... I used what I had! ;) My husband seared the outside part of the roll, so you can see some burn marks on the mangoes and avocados too. But it is SO good! Inside the roll is pieces of sashimi-grade tuna (I only had enough to make one roll), crabmeat, cucumber, mango and my spicy mayo. Usually when I use tuna inside a sushi roll, I counter it with a piece of cream cheese so that it's not as "fishy" tasting, but I didn't have any on me. So I guess the mango helped hide the fishiness. >_<

There you have it guys!!! HOMEMADE SUSHI! But it is honestly time consuming to prep everything by yourself. =( Oh! Wait, one more thing... the sushi rice I made this evening SUCKED ARSE! If you guys want to have a good slab of rice on your sushi, I highly recommend using a new rice cooker or even one with a sushi rice setting. I made my sushi rice using an old rice cooker and it didn't cook thoroughly as it should have (which made it too mushy and have an ugly, wet texture as a result). =/

Good luck guys!! Try this sushi roll when you can! <3 =)