Bacon Avocado Sushi

I love avocado sushi, but it’s not always available to me; I don’t have a lot of take-out places near me, and it’s inexplicably more expensive at the grocery store than at restaurants, so learning how to make it myself has been on my list for some time. So on Sunday I finally decided to take the plunge, and here I present my first-ever sushi making experience.

Ingredients (enough for 2 avocado rolls and 2 bacon-avocado rolls):

• 1 1/2 cups sushi rice
• 2 cups water
• 1/3 cup seasoned rice vinegar
• 1 medium avocado
• 6 slices bacon
• 4 slices of nori
• bamboo mat for rolling

Sushi needs good rice. You want a short-grain rice for sushi rice; it gets stickier than its longer-grained friends. Cook it according to the package. Mine was 1.5 cups rice to 2 cups water. Bring it to a slow boil, and cook (covered) for 20 minutes, or until all the water is absorbed. Take it off the heat and let it cool for 10 minutes. If you don’t have pre-seasoned rice vinegar, you’ll also want to make that mixture during this time: rice vinegar, sugar, and salt. I took the easy way though. After the 10 minutes of cooling, fluff the rice with a paddle or spoon, and slowly add the rice vinegar to it. Let it cool, and ta-da! Sushi rice! (I admit to being a little impatient and not letting it cool before making my first roll.)

Once you have your rice you’ll probably want some fillings for your roll. I chose avocado (and thought bacon would be a brilliant addition), so I started with those. I’ll probably branch out into some other things (cucumber, shrimp, etc.), but avocado is a good starting point. I fried up some bacon while cooking the rice, and sliced my ripe avocado into thin strips:

Rice? Check. Fillings? Check. Now to assemble your roll. Take your bamboo mat (surprisingly inexpensive at my grocery store), and you’ll probably want to wrap it in saran. The rice really is sticky, and cleaning the mat doesn’t sound like fun. Take a slice of your nori (shiny side down) and place it on the mat.

Take some rice and spread a layer on the seaweed. (My package said 2 cups of rice, but I never measured.) Be sure to leave an inch plain at the top to help seal the roll. Place your desired fillings in the center of the rice:

And roll! Thumbs at the base of the mat, and your fingers to help keep the fillings from sliding out. (If your fingers get sticky, you can rinse them in some diluted rice vinegar. It helps.) It’s a little awkward at first, but I was surprised that even my first roll turned out.

Slice and serve!

Yum!

It wasn’t the fastest to prepare, but it was so delicious, and 1 avocado made four generous rolls. Definitely worth doing every now and then. Shoot. I’m making myself hungry writing this. I want more! In retrospect, I’m not sure the bacon added enough to the sushi to be worth the extra effort, but it was all tasty.