Sunday night hand rolls, and learning to cook just for me
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For a long time I didn't cook for myself. I cooked for people. When the people went home, I ate crackers over the sink and called it dinner.
The thing that changed that was small, and a little silly. It was a hand roll.
Sunday evenings at my place are slow on purpose. I change into my softest pajamas before the sun is even down, pull a cardigan over them, and let the house get quiet. Hugo, my golden retriever, claims the red rug by the French doors and is asleep within minutes. That's when I make temaki.
If you've never had one, a temaki is sushi you don't have to be good at. There's no mat and no knife work to speak of. You hold a half sheet of nori in your palm, add a little rice and a spoonful of filling, and roll it into a cone. You eat it right away, while the seaweed still crackles, which means you make them one at a time. I think that's the part I fell for. You can't make a hand roll ahead. You have to be there for it.
I use the Spicy Tuna Temaki Hand Roll recipe on Cooking with Robots, and I've barely changed it. Half a pound of sashimi-grade yellowfin, diced small and kept cold. Kewpie mayo, sriracha, and a little toasted sesame oil whisked together, then folded into the tuna with half the green onions. Cucumber cut into matchsticks. Two cups of seasoned sushi rice, cooled to room temperature. That's the whole shopping list, apart from nori and soy sauce.
The fish is the one place I don't cut corners. I buy it the same day from the counter where they'll tell me what came in, and I say out loud that I'm eating it raw. If they hesitate, I make something else.
The recipe has one note that fixed every hand roll I'd ever ruined: keep your hands slightly damp with vinegared water. I used to fight the rice. It stuck to my fingers, then to the nori, and the whole thing turned into a sad wet taco. Now there's a little bowl of water with a splash of rice vinegar next to my board, and I dip my fingertips before every roll. The rice behaves.
A few other things I learned by getting them wrong:
Put the rough side of the nori up, facing the rice. Spread the rice thin, and only over the left third of the sheet. I always want to use more, and then the cone won't close. Lay the tuna and cucumber diagonally, fold the bottom-left corner up over the filling, and keep rolling into a cone. Press one grain of rice on the edge to seal it. That single grain of rice still delights me every time.
Then I sprinkle sesame seeds and the rest of the green onions on top, sit down, and eat it before I make the next one.
Some Sundays I make three. Some Sundays I make six and eat them standing up, one hand on the counter, feet cold on the tile. Hugo lifts his head for the tuna, remembers he's not allowed, and goes back to sleep.
I don't want to oversell a sushi cone. It didn't fix my life. It did give me one evening a week where I make something good just because I want it, for nobody else. I stopped waiting for a guest to justify the nice ingredients. I'm allowed the nice tuna. So are you.
If you try it, set everything out before you start: rice, fish, cucumber, onions, nori, the little bowl of water. Put on something comfortable. Roll one, eat it, and roll the next.