Tuna and Eel Sushi Feast

A selection of Temari Sushi

I enjoy spending time surfing the web for recipes and reading other food blogs, drooling at all the gorgeous photos that look like they came straight out of a magazine. A lot of the time, I get inspired and start printing out recipes, which I would add on to my growing pile of "to-cook-or-bake" recipe print-outs. I haven't gotten around to trying all of them yet, but there are some which are simple and relatively easy that you don't have to think twice about whether or not to make it.

One of them is sushi. I've been inspired by Nami of Just One Cookbook to make simple and tasty Japanese dishes, as I'm sure anyone who has seen her website with such beaufiful photos would be too. She recently posted some recipes for Temari Sushi and Salmon & Ikura Don, both of which looked fantastic and yet, she made it sound easy enough for an amateur like me to prepare.

Unagi and Egg Hosomaki

And so, I went on the hunt for salmon and ikura yesterday, and only managed to find yellowfin (ahi) tuna instead. Never mind. I love tuna too, so I guessed I would be making Tekka Don (ie. Tuna on rice) instead. I also figured that I might as well use that to make Temari sushi too, and make some ham and egg Temari for the kids who don't eat raw fish. I also had some frozen grilled eel which I conveniently popped in the oven to heat up for Z who is a big fan of unagi.

One idea led to another and soon I was making Hoso-maki (slender sushi rolls), Nigiri sushi (hand-moulded sushi, which is the hardest to make), temari sushi, tekka don and some miso soup to go with our Japanese feast. Fortunately, I started making these in the late morning as I underestimated the time I needed to cook, prepare, slice and assemble all the ingredients. I had everything ready on the table by noon and we all enjoyed our tuna and eel sushi spread, not forgetting the tekka don which was thoroughly savoured by G. Next time, I might just try to focus on one type of sushi instead of "maximising" the potential of the ingredients on hand :)

PS: I now recall having made these "Ninja Rice Balls" a few months ago, using clingwrap to shape them into little balls. I guess they are kind of a cross between onigiri and temari? Or perhaps not :p

Tekka Don