Temaki Sushi (Hand-wrapped Sushi)

Egg, cucumber, lettuce, mayonnaise, and wasabi.
Salmon, avocado, onion, lettuce, mayonaise, and wasabi.
Chicken tender, lettuce, mayonnaise, and wasabi.

These are made-at-the-table sushi wraps. Basically, you put a little rice on a piece of nori seaweed, then put in a little sliced omelet, fish, avocado, cucumber, lettuce, and/or whatever you like. The secret to making them pretty is to be sparing with the rice.

Prepare sushi rice.

Prepare ingredients for wraps:

Tamagoyaki (rolled omelet) -

Use the basic recipe on that page; add no extra ingredients. After it is cooled, cut into about 1 cm square lengths.

Fried chicken tenders (sasami)  –

Cut chicken tenders in half, lengthwise.

For 3 tenders, marinate in:

1 t sake
1 t soy sauce
½ t finely minced garlic

Put 3 T flour in a disposable plastic bag. Add the marinated tenders and shake bag to coat them.

Put 1 egg in a wide bowl and mix it. Dip the tenders, one at a time, in the egg.  

Put ½ C panko (Japanese bread crumbs) in a disposable plastic bag. Shake the tenders, one at a time, in the bread crumbs to coat.

Heat about 1 cm of canola or grape-seed oil in a small frying pan. When the oil is hot, turn the fire to low and add 3 of the tenders, making sure the are straight in the pan. (To test the oil temperature, put the end of a wooden chopstick in the oil. When the oil is the right temperature, the oil on the chopstick will bubble.)

Cook until golden brown on one side, gently turn and cook the other side until golden. Drain on a rack over newspaper (to catch any dripping oil).

Raw tuna and/or raw salmon – 

Slice as for sashimi, thinly across the grain of the fish. 

Avocado -

Slice thinly.

Leaf lettuce -

Wash and gently pat dry.

Cucumber – 

Slice in ½ and then lengthwise in rectangles. You don’t need to peel it.

Onions -

Slice paper thin with a vegetable slicer.

You will also want to have:

Wasabi paste
Mayonnaise
Temaki sushi nori
Pickled ginger
(umeboshi, aka pickled plums)

Put rice and all the other food you have prepared on the table. People make their own sushi wraps by putting 1-2 T of rice on the nori and then add whatever other ingredients they like and roll the nori into a cone shape.