Sushi Making Class

One of the coolest things I have done lately is take a sushi rolling class.  Part of my plan of continuing my education is taking cooking classes.  (Official culinary education is too expensive for me, but that doesn’t prevent me from taking classes offered on Groupon, Living Social, and the Wilton cake decorating classes!)   I decided to take Sushi Making...Just Roll with It through IWisshLessons.  When I registered for the class, my signature line identified me as a gluten and dairy free blogger, but I failed to come outright and say that I could not consume those two allergens.   Upon arriving for the class (which was held at a downtown bar), I informed the ladies from the company that I was gluten and lactose intolerant.  They went through the ingredients and could not think of anything that would cause me trouble expect for the soy sauce.  Of course, I brought my own, thanks to San-J’s single serving soy sauce packets.  Only when we got to the final roll was any red flag raised regarding allergens – crabmeat.  Thankfully I pretty much memorized the lists of forbidden foods on the gluten free diet over the past two years, so I avoided the crabmeat (imitation crab is often bound together with wheat) and asked for more cucumber sticks.  Everyone was very accommodating and our instructor was excellent.  She is a sushi chef at a nearby restaurant and was great with making sure everyone knew what we were doing.  I went to class solo, but there were couples and groups of friends learning sushi rolling together over a glass of wine or bottle of beer.

Our first roll was an extremely basic Cucumber Roll.  We laid out our seaweed and spread the sticky rice over it, filling it completely except for a small section at the top.  Then we laid the cucumber sticks on the rice and rolled it as tight as possible.  Next, we cut the sushi into equal sized pieces.  (Hint: if you dip a knife in water first, you'll get a cleaner cut.)

The second roll was a California Roll that appeared to be inside out.  It started much like the first, but we added toasted sesame seeds.  Then it was flipped upside down and then the fillings were added.

The final roll could have been made one of the two previously shown ways.  We had spicy tuna added to our ingredient repertoire.  (It was quite spicy, too!)  If we wanted, we could enter our sushi into a friendly competition, judged by the I Wish representatives and the instructor.  The competition was based on presentation.  As a blogger who almost always has her camera attached to her wrist while doing anything food related, I understood presentation.  I carefully plated my sushi and submitted my plate.  Although I lost, the instructor exclusively pointed mine out as “exceptionally rolled”.  Go me!  Maybe I have a knack for this sushi thing after all!

Overall, I recommend taking a sushi class.  The I Wish lessons were well presented and the company’s reps were great about making sure we had the necessary supplies throughout each step.  (Although they didn’t have to be so stingy with the paper towels – I didn’t realize just how much one needs to rinse their hands off after touching the sticky rice!)