‘I’m not making art. I’m making sushi’
Masaharu Morimoto
One of my favourite food quotes. And so apt to introduce this blogpost. Because this is not just about eating sushi but also making it.
The food bloggers were recently invited to BusaGo at Lower Parel for a fun sushi making MasterClass where renowned chef Nikhil Chib would be teaching us. Here we could make our own sushi and eat it too! The best tasting sushi would then be put on the menu at BusaGo, Lower Parel for the entire month of July. We all reached the venue the allotted Saturday afternoon and sipped on sangria while we waited for the class to begin. They brought out the sushi making ingredients and the shutterbugs went crazy clicking pictures even before we knew what the ingredients were.
Special mention to Chef Chib’s Rottweiler Wolfgang who roamed around the place, greeting everyone and supervising us as we made some sushi. Hands down the friendliest Rottweiler in the world.
Chef then went through the entire process of making a sushi. Here is a quick step by step procedure.
- Place the bamboo mat for rolling the sushi on the counter, and the seaweed paper on top of the mat. The sushi we were learning to make is called a maki and uses a seaweed called nori as the outer covering.
- Wet your fingers and start spreading the sticky rice over the seaweed sheet such that it is all evened out.
- On one end of the sheet add the fillings of your choice depending on what sushi you want to make. Chef told us to experiment with what types of sushi we can make since sushi is a versatile dish.
- Now the tricky part. Rolling the sushi with the help of the bamboo mat till you get a sushi roll.
- Cut the sushi roll from the center into symmetrical, equal pieces (which is again super difficult to do).
We were randomly divided into teams of 3-4 and asked to go back and experiment making our own sushi. Our team named ‘Japanese Dolls’ comprised of Aditi (@stuffednstarved), Saloni (@masalachic) and me. We made two types of sushi, a vegetarian ‘Green Geisha’, and a non-vegetarian ‘Hot Dog Sushi’.
Chef then judged the sushi of every team based on taste, presentation and technique. Our ‘Green Geisha’ was declared the best vegetarian sushi. Woot Woot!
We finished with the hard work of cooking and moved onto the fun job of eating. Momos were being passed around, and I enjoyed the chicken ones. Vegetarian, not so much.
The BusaGo Kaukswe is a coconut curry had with noodles and topped with ingredients of your choice. This is one of my favorite places in the city to get Kaukswe on a budget. The one here is not too spicy so remember to customize it as per your preference with chilli flakes.
I also really like how the place is done up. Bright, cheery interiors. Colorful chairs and tables. And a blackboard displaying the menu.
All in all such a fun event, learning a new skill. Remember to try our Vegetarian sushi all of July at BusaGo, Lower Parel. Or else come over and be my guinea pig while I experiment with a few sushi ideas I have of my own. Chocolate sushi anyone?
