Finger Food

Last week I got an email from Blurb, the amazing site where you can make your own photo-books in order to self-publish a coffee table book, make a portfolio, or just create an amazing photo-driven gift... Last year I used Blurb to make a book about my blog to take with me to Altitude Design Summit so that I could share a beautiful hard copy of my blog with my DIY colleagues and introduce my work to the media and brands that were there to meet bloggers.  I was new at the whole selling myself thing (I'm still pretty reluctant) so having the book as a tool to share my blog made things a lot easier for me, and as it turns out, made me memorable to some brands, including Blurb.  Oh, here's the book link in case you are curious. A while back, shortly after ALT, Blurb asked me if they could use my book as a marketing piece for their brand, because they really liked what I made, and I of course said yes. So I was pretty excited when they contacted me again, this time because they have decided to throw a party to showcase some of their favorite food books, and they want me to cook for some folks, and maybe even shoot a little video. Yes, I'm pretty excited.  I had to pick something from the book, which only has a small food section, and because it makes a great finger food, and it's pretty fun to look at I chose the sushi hand-balls AKA temarazushi from this post.  I'm working on making them a little more visually interesting for the table so it's what's for dinner around here right now.  Here' a freshened up tutorial.  Bay Area readers(Corner Blog), let me know if you might want to come to the party. I can invite a few folks. It's on October 14th from 6-9pm in San Francisco.  

You will need: short grain white rice, seasoned rice vinegar, nori(seaweed), a hole punch (that looks funny), some scissors, plastic wrap and whatever ingredients you choose to add. I use mango, avocado, and smoked salmon on mine, because they work as lunch food for my kids, but you can use raw sushi-grade fish or cooked shellfish to make it more traditional.

Prepare rice.  The ratio is 1 cup rice to 1 1/2 cups water.  For best sticky rice, you want to rinse the rice ahead of cooking.  To do this just measure into a colander and run under room temperature water for a minute.  Put rice into a large pot with water, bring to a boil, cover and reduce to low heat and simmer for 20 minutes.  It should be puffy. Transfer rice to a bowl and drizzle with vinegar (about 1/8 cup). Cover with a cotton towel and allow to cool.  When it is room temperature, form into golf-ball sized portions, using water on your fingertips to prevent sticking. 

Here's where you get crafty.  I use a 1.5" circle punch and a single hole punch to cut my nori, but you can simply use scissors and cut the nori into 1-2" squares and make your own design. Get a bunch prepped, then it's time to assemble.

I used the top of the milk container to cut slices of mango, and used random cuts of avocado and thin slices of salmon, about 1.5" in length/diameter and draped them over the top of the rice ball, placing a nori piece on top, the I covered them in a 8" cut of plastic wrap and pressed it over the top, twisting at the back to form the ball tightly and incorporate the ingredients. In the original tutorial I dipped the nori in water before this step, but I don't think it's necessary.

And that's it, once they look smooth under the plastic wrap, pull them out and put them on a platter.  It's really pretty easy.