We recently had our backyard trees trimmed, which meant that the avocado tree, which had a good 500 avocados on it, had to be stripped of both branches and fruit. After giving away hundreds, we had a drawerful, and they were about to be perfectly ripe yesterday, so I planned for sushi.
I’ve only made sushi at home once before, and it went off pretty smoothly, so I wasn’t as scared this time. It’s time-consuming, but it’s way cheaper than a night out at Genki or Kurukuru.
The biggest expense is the meat, the sashimi block in particular. I bought one for $14, then got a small container of tobiko from Marukai for around $5, and finally a pack of imitation crab for about $4. It’s about 8 cups cooked rice, which really isn’t much, so considering everything and being generous, this probably cost me about $25 to make.
When you consider what I made in ordering out terms, it would be (not all is pictured above):
- 2 Tekka maki ($2.20 ea)
- 1 Ume maki ($1.50 ea)
- 1 Avocado maki ($1.50 ea)
- 2 full-size California rolls ($2.20 ea x4)
- 4 orders Tobiko ($2.20 ea)
The above comes out to about $25, so about breaking even. But then you add this:
Ba-BOOM! Add in six orders of maguro, which are put under the $2.80 plate section—but marked “market price” and so can be even higher—and you add on another $16.80, which comes out to $41.80 eating out, plus tip, so I spent about $25 to make a $50 sushi meal. And I always feel guilty eating more than one plate (which comes with two pieces) whenever we eat out. This time I got to GORGE on maguro and still have enough for lunch today.
Making the rice is pretty easy, since I’m lazy. I just have a bottled of Seasoned Rice Vinegar (which is different from regular rice vinegar) and follow the bottle instructions. As I said, the hard part is all the putting together. It took me about 45 minutes to do all of this. In the end, well worth the effort!