The other day my husand and I hosted a cocktail party, and just to shake things up, I decided to serve homemade maki. I’ve never made maki before, but reading Sushi: Taste and Technique by Kimiko Barber and Hiroki Takemura, http://www.amazon.com/Sushi-Taste-Techniques-Kimiko-Barber/dp/0789489163 gave me the needed courage. Scoping out the offerings in a couple of local Japanese restaurants, I came up with a good idea of what I wanted to make. The results were stunning. And, I must admit, that once I assembled the ingredients, which was admittedly a bit time-consuming, the rolling and slicing were easy.
I don’t have a recipe to share (it would take me a week to accurately record and photograph everything I did), but I will share two key points: make sure you season your rice well with a mix of rice vinegar, mirin, sugar, and salt, and make your rolls tight so they hold together nicely, especially if you include a lot of ingredients in large rolls. You can see from the photos that I used various combinations of smoked salmon, cucumber, steamed French beans, steamed carrots, omelette, sauteed mushrooms, and crab sticks. I did the traditional seaweed on the outside, and then tried rice on the outside coated with black and white sesame seeds.
Wasabi, soy sauce for suhi, which is a lot milder than regular soy sauce, and Japanese pickled ginger are all essentials. Hungry yet?
More about Appetizers, Fish, Homemade, Omega-3, Salmon
If you’ve got a picky eater at home, these 10 rules should help you keep your sanity. My kids have been well trained over many years to try almost everything I put in front of them, both at home and in restaurants, and as a food writer-author, I’ve dragged my family through some pretty strange eating experiences. My daughter tried duck brains in Beijing at the famous Da Dong Peking Duck Restaurant (“they’re okay, but I prefer the pancakes and duck,” was her response, and mine too). When we lived in the Philippines, my then seven-year-old son tried deep-fried mole crickets at a food festival. The little Filipino boy sitting next to him was chomping away on a handful of the dark nuggets, so my son felt compelled to try them. He said they tasted like “really, really, really crispy fried chicken nuggets.” His Filipino acquaintance agreed.
There is no definitive answer to this question because so many variables need to be considered, including the diet of the fish. In general, farmed-fish that are fed fishmeal and fish oil tend to have more omega-3s than those fed a grain-based diet heavy on vegetable oils (a common choice because it is cheaper). Wild fish eat a naturally varied diet, including krill and other sea creatures, plus algae. All “Atlantic salmon” is farm-raised, a reality stemming from the fact that wild sources have been depleted from the ocean. All “Alaskan salmon” is wild, and much of it is canned. The “Pacific species,” including coho (silver) and Chinook (king) can be wild or farmed. Bottom line: On the whole, it is probably safe to say that wild-caught and farm-raised salmon have approximately the same amount of omega-3s. Read more 
