Pre-prep: Cut your filling into long strips, make your sushi rice (3 cups makes about 7-10 rolls), and place your suchi rolling bamboo mat in a ziplock bag. It will still roll but you have almost zero cleanup afterwards.
1. Place seaweed roughside up on mat.
2. Scoop rice on top of seaweed and carefully and lightly fluff rice toward the edges. (If you smash or pull too hard you will tear the seaweed.
3. Leave a 1 inch border at the end, carefully smash rice with otherside of rice spoon to compress.
4. Lay filling in the middle towards the top and sprinkle with rice seasoning. We filled ours with Imitation Krab strips, cream cheese (cut in strips), steamed carrots, steamed asparagus, sliced avacado (Next time I am making tempura shrimp and putting that in there too, Cucumber is also a good filler). I can't remember exactly which Rice Seasoning we used except it was pretty like confetti...this is the brand I found when I googled Rice Seasoning:
5. Carefully start to roll seaweed over, pinching lightly to compress. When towards the end, dab empty seaweed inch with water to seal. When in a roll leave seam down on mat.
6. Roll mat over and pinch along the way, continue rolling mat and pinching until sushi roll has become tight.
7. When cutting roll, start in the middle, and then cut in quartered sections, This is just easier to handle and doesn't end up squishing the end of the roll, like when you start at one end.
For sushi with rice on the outside, you spread the rice from edge to edge in a thick layer on the seaweed. Sprinkle with the rice seasoning and then quickly flip (or slowly :) like me) over and add your filling at the top. You will roll the entire roll with the mat, pinching after each turn to make sure the rice is sticking and compressing well, forming a tight roll.
Hope that was helpful!
