Cucumber Sushi

Cucumber Sushi is bound to wow your friends. It's very artistic looking and surprisingly easy to make. There is just one technique I wasn't able to photograph, since I needed both hands to cut the cucumber. It involves slicing your cucumber into very thin strips. I'll either need to do a video on this one, or have a friend take a bunch of pictures while I slice... maybe both.

You start by peeling your cucumber (although if you like the cucumber skin, it works fine and you don't have to peel). Next cut off about 2 to 2 1/2 inches of cucumber with an even diameter.

Start slicing into the cucumber, keeping the knife only a few millimeters into the cucumber.

Next, start slicing up and down with your knife, while at the same time turning the cucumber. The trick here is to turn the cucumber to cut it into strips and not use the knife to cut around the cucumber. Basically, when you start slicing "up and down," it's hardly at all. Maybe just a few millimeters up and down to help the knife cut, but it's mainly the movement of the cucumber that will give you nice even strips like the picture above.

The more practice you get the more thinly you will be able to slice it (generally the thinner the better, so long as the cucumber strip doesn't break).  

Once you've got your strips of cucumber, you need a little ball of rice like the one below. You don't have to squeeze or pack the rice to tightly.

The rice should be just enough to fill the inside of cucumber strips, but not so much that they're overflowing.

As you can see in the picture below, the cucumber will not hold the rice in by itself.

You'll want to press the rice down slightly to leave enough room at the top for filling, but more importantly so that you can shape your cucumber and rice sushi.

Take a sheet of Nori and cut it into strips.

These strips below are about as wide as you'll want to go. Try your best to cut evenly, and try to cut the thinnest strips you can without the strips breaking.

Once you've got your strips wrap them around the rice filled cucumber strips. Wet the ends of the Nori strips with water so they stick once wrapped. Wrap them as tightly as you can without forcing the rice up out of the cucumber strips.

There are tons of topping you could do with this type of sushi - spicy tuna, spicy salmon, scallops, sea urchin (uni), fresh sashimi, etc.

This time I'm using Masago (the roe or eggs of a North Atlantic fish called Capelin).

Spoon a bit of Masago into the open end of the cucumber sushi.

And finally, you'll get something that looks like this:

I also like to add just a little bit of black sesame seeds for color contrast.

As I mentioned before, the thinner you can get your Nori strips, the better it will look. Check out this one:

Again, add your favorite topping.

Kanpai!