Roll Play: Making Sushi

Monday 24th September

Healthy, perfectly portioned nibbly food – what’s not to love about sushi? And if we can get our children to like it too, then we have a new lunchtime option up our sleeve

Some people have a preconceived notion that making sushi is difficult, but this is not strictly true. You don’t need to be a professional sushi master to make a wholesome and delicious sushi meal. All of our young apprentice sushi makers picked up the technique quite quickly, and it was really wonderful to see the children having fun whilst learning a new skill at the same time. Our children love sushi, and they like being actively involved in food preparation. The best thing about our experience is that everyone got to eat what they made. The educators are passionate about teaching children how to make healthy food. We can see that each child has the potential to go on and inspire their friends and family about healthy eating as well.

For our activity today, the ingredients included:

+ Bamboo rolling mats

+ A tub of cooked sushi rice

+ One package of toasted nori sheets

+ Soy sauce and rice vinegar

+ Vegetable fillings: Avocado, cucumber, capsicum, celery, carrot, shitake mushrooms, sweet potato and green beans

+ Tuna

+ Pickled ginger, wasabi (Japanese horseradish) sauce and seseme garnishing optional

We made sure to prepare all of the fillings in advance, so that we could assemble the rolls quickly. We sliced some avocado, and julienned some cucumber and carrots. We also mixed some mayo and sriracha to make a spicy sauce. Our rice was cooked a few hours beforehand and left to sit in the fridge. Our children participated in making the maki rolls, and we organised our workspace with the food, the nori, the bamboo mat, and a bowl of water to dunk our hands in before working with the sticky rice.

The children were asked to select one sheet of nori and to place it shiny side down on the bamboo mat. After wetting our hands, we picked up some rice and spread it on the nori, and then with our fingers, pressed it down gently. The children took part in adding fillings to the centre of the rice roll and gently pressed this down with one, two or three fillings per roll. We instructed the children to place the biggest fillings in first with the smaller fillings on top.

As we began rolling, we lifted the end of the bamboo mat that was nearest to us and folded over the ingredients. We dipped our fingers in the bowl of water and lightly moistened the top end of the nori sheet that was furthest away from us. We folded the roll into the end of the nori and sealed it. The educators encouraged the children to squeeze the roll gently with their hands and with their palms, and roll it back and forth between the fold of the bamboo mat to ensure the roll was sealed and to help shape it. The educators helped the children slice the maki rolls into eight even slices with a sharp knife. We served our rolls as an entrée for lunch, garnished with a dash of soy sauce and ginger to finish.

The children had a go at using chopsticks. One of the most delightful things about sushi, especially for children, is that we are encouraged to eat with our hands. We explained that, eating with the hands is common in many areas of the world, including parts of Asia and much of Africa and the Middle East. We persuaded the children to use the chopsticks as tweezers or tongs to eat our food.

The children liked the clean taste of the fresh ingredients, and the texture and flavour of the seaweed. We were delighted that our children took right to it and it was also a great way to show some aspects of other cultures that they may not be familiar with.