Friday, September 25, 2009

sushi partay

Um, you know what’s fun? Sushi. You know what’s REALLY fun? Sushi made of FREE STUFF!

I’m a Foodbuzz featured publisher, cause I’m legit. From time to time, we get free stuff as part of the Tastemaker program. Earlier this week, it means I got a delivery of my choice of $30 worth of groceries from Asianfoodgrocer.com.

Here’s what it got me!

Sushi paraphernalia!

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Wrappers and nori.

Desserts!

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Ginger candy, mango custardy/jelloey stuff, and “melon bread” (had to try it!)

Condiments!

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Miso paste and fish sauce.

Finally, serious Japanese staples:

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Tofu, dried shiitakes, and udon noodles!

With this bounty, I knew I had to share. What better than a make-your-own sushi night with the girlfriends?!

I started with homemade miso soup!

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Roughly following the proportions in this recipe, I used 6 cups of water, 1/4 cup miso paste, and 2/3 of the block of tofu. Lacking dashi, I instead used some of the hot water to rehydrate one of the dried mushrooms and let that broth flavor the soup (and I chopped up the shroom and added that!)

The final soup was gorgeous and tasty and restaurant caliber!

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Now for my sushi assembly line.

Seaweed and rice (all I had was brown rice, but I found this awesome sounding recipe, which I quadrupled) :

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Assembly was done with a lot of smearage. Amy, the only person in the group who’d done this previously, was key to demonstrating:

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Marisa looked on in awe:

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Using a spoon to get a big scoopful of rice and then a fork to actually shmear it was key.

For fillings, since there were 3 vegetarians attending, I went heavy on the plants:

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Clockwise from the top, that’s carrots; cucs; edamame tossed in chili sauce; mango, and broccoli slaw made with salt, rice vin, and Sriracha.

The all veggie rolls were beautiful and colorful.

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The proud artiste, with our first successful roll:

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Straight up, rolling up sushi, particularly without the benefit of a bamboo mat, can be hard. There was a lot of team effort. The roomie stepped in, after coming back from work. What a champ!

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For those of us who WILL eat something with a face, I was too squeamish and scared for raw fish, so I went for TJ’s smoked salmon:

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If I do say so myself, the first roll I made (salmon and cuc!) looked pretty good.

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We also had a nice condiment bar, with homemade wasabi and pilfered individual soy sauce packets (for easy single servings):

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Everyone relaxed and chatted, and I got into a nice roll-making zone. The broccoli slaw was the ingredient that I found the most surprisingly delicious. The mango and edamame also got rave reviews.

I felt so creative and artistic!

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Finally, dessert.

The mango dofu delight was like jello, and frankly a little weird. The ginger candy was, a bit disappointingly, hard candy and not chews. But tasted SOOOOOOO GINGERY!

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And the melon bread looked like a sliced up brain :D

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A good time was had by all!

I was totally psyched to get this free opportunity, courtesy of Foodbuzz and Asian Food Grocer, and I was even happier to use the bounty to get together with some friends!

5 comments:

Jes said...

I've been meaning to fax back my FoodBuzz forms--I should get on it! The miso soup and sushi look amazing!

Jessica said...

I'm impressed. That looks pretty darn good.

Andrea@WellnessNotes said...

Sounds like lots of fun! Great job on the sushi! And it's always fun to experiment with some new foods (even if they turn out slightly weird)... ;)

Have a great weekend!

Thy Thy said...

i love cooking with friends! It is so fun!

STacy said...

We are happy you enjoyed your products. We are always in favor of a party!