Temaki is the easiest, most generous way to eat sushi — everyone rolls their own at the table. Crisp nori, warm seasoned rice, and whatever fillings you like. The secret is just two things: good nori, and properly seasoned rice.
Serves 4 · about 30 minutes
Ingredients
- Sushi rice: 2 rice-cups (360 ml) short-grain rice, cooked; 3 tbsp rice vinegar + 2 tbsp sugar + 1 tsp salt
- Nori, cut into halves or quarters
- Fillings: sashimi-grade fish, cucumber, avocado, tamago, shiso — whatever you love (vegetable pickles if you prefer)
- To serve: soy sauce, wasabi, pickled ginger
How to make it
- Mix the vinegar, sugar, and salt until just dissolved. Fold gently through the hot cooked rice with a slicing motion; cool to body temperature, fanning for gloss.
- Cut the nori into palm-sized pieces and keep them crisp — don’t lay them on the rice until serving.
- Set out the rice, nori, and fillings. Each person takes a sheet, adds a little rice and fillings on the diagonal, and rolls it into a cone.
- Dip lightly in soy sauce with a touch of wasabi.
Tip
Toast the nori for a few seconds over a low flame just before serving for extra crispness and aroma. Keep the rice at room temperature — never cold from the fridge.
What to put in them
Almost anything that can be cut into a strip will work, which is why no two temaki tables look the same. Here is what ours usually holds. The only item that takes any planning is fish that is safe to eat raw — everything on the vegetarian list is an ordinary grocery shop.
With fish and meat
- Salmon, tuna, sea bream, and crab — cut into strips rather than wide sashimi slices, so they sit properly in a cone
- Simmered eel, already sweet and glazed, which needs nothing added to it
- Thin slices of roast beef — not traditional, always the first plate to empty
- Tamagoyaki, cucumber, shiso, and kaiware sprouts alongside
Vegetarian
- Tamagoyaki, cut into batons — leave it out and the table is vegan
- Cucumber, shiso, kaiware sprouts, avocado, and myoga
- Pickles of any kind: takuan, red pickled ginger, kombu simmered in soy sauce
- Sweet-savoury simmered eggplant, and koya tofu crumbled and simmered — these two are what turn a vegetarian roll from a side dish into dinner
A table that fits everyone
We welcome visitors from overseas into our kitchen through the year, for a lunch or a dinner and a long, easy talk about the food we each grew up with. Some days the table is entirely vegetarian. Other days there is fish, and a plate of roast beef beside it. Temaki has turned out to be the meal that suits all of those tables.
Nothing has to be made twice. The fish goes on one plate, the cucumber and pickles and shiso on another, the tamago on a third, and everyone builds exactly the roll they want — one slicing tuna, another cutting the thin omelette into ribbons, someone reaching over the middle of the table for the last of the avocado. There is a great deal of laughing, and everyone leaves having eaten the meal they chose for themselves. They are among the happiest evenings we have in this kitchen.
Hosting someone who eats differently — vegetarian, or with an allergy, or simply particular about what they like? Set the fillings out in separate dishes rather than on one shared platter. Then nobody needs to ask about anything; they just reach for what they love.
The same bottle, after dinner
After the hand-rolls, we sometimes bring out vanilla ice cream and the same soy sauce we have been using at the table. A few drops bring a caramel-like richness, with a savory depth underneath. Guests who have just dipped their sushi into it are surprised to find it belongs in dessert too. If you have a bottle on the table, try a few drops on a spoonful first — it is an easy way to share one more discovery before the evening ends.
