Learn how to make authentic gunkan sushi at home and take your sushi skills to the next level!
Prep Time: 10 minutesmins
Cook Time: 20 minutesmins
Total Time: 30 minutesmins
Ingredients
2cupsSushi rice*or 8.5oz/240g
1baby cucumber
1packNatto
½cupCorn kernels*or 2.5oz/70g
2sheetsNori seaweed sheets
Instructions
Cooking sushi rice
Cook sushi rice. *1
Once the sushi rice is made, make 12 small cylinder shape sushi rice balls, each about 0.7 oz (20g) of sushi rice, and set them aside. *2
Prepare toppings and Nori sheets
For this recipe, I prepared natto and corn mayo.
Slice the baby cucumber thinly.
Unpack the natto. Mix the sauce sachet and mustard that comes with the natto into the natto and stir vigorously. Set it aside.
Mix corn kernels and the Japanese mayonnaise. Set it aside.
Cut nori seaweed sheets: seaweed sheets have lines about 1.25 inch (3cm) intervals. Cut nori sheets along those lines. You should be able to cut 6 strips of nori sheets.
Assembling
Start wrapping the seaweed at about one-third of the long side of the rice ball, go around the fourth corner, and make the straight line where the seaweed and rice meet as long as possible.
Seal the end of the nori sheet together by wetting one end with water or vinegar or place one cooked rice grain on the start and end of the nori sheet where they overlap to glue them together.
Press down the middle of the sushi rice to make a shallow well. Place two sliced cucumber on one side, and desired toppings in the well, filling it to the top of the nori sheet.
Repeat the process with the remaining nori sheets and toppings.
Serve the gunkan sushi with soy sauce, wasabi, and pickled ginger.
Notes
*1 Make the rice following my perfect sushi rice instructions.*2 You can make sushi by free hands or using a mold. If you use mold, wet the mold with water so that the sushi rice will not stick to the mold. You can also squish them lightly the sushi balls that mold made using a sheet of cling wrap. Also if you are making them by free hands, use a sheet of cling wrap.