Gregory Hillman's Educational Content

Anyone who has wanted the excellent taste and comfort of sushi at home has wondered how to make sushi rice in the best way they can.  These are some secrets that I have found when making sushi rice.  Now remember, my only training is from growing up with Japanese friends, living with Japanese college room mates, and watching other chefs at Sushi restaurants cook sushi rice.

You will need at least an hour to make reasonably good rice for sushi.  The first half hour the rice will cook and the second half hour the rice will need to cool with a sushi rice solution.  This way when you put the rice with the fish it does not partially cook the fish.

Rice the rice with your hands and running tap water.  Get as much cloudiness out of the rice as you can and be sure there is nothing else in the rice besides rice.  Sometimes small stones can appear and make for an expensive trip to the dentist.

Put your stove top on medium heat.  Place the rice and the same amount of water plus a few tablespoons in the pan and cover with a tight lid so steam does not escape.

Bring the rice and water to a boil.  Gregory Hillman suggests this because it may kill some bad things in the water.  Reduce the temp to low and let the rice simmer for 15 minutes.  Then take the rice off the burner and let it sit hot for 15 minutes.  When complete add the rice solution.

Add a solution of salt, sugar, and rice vinegar to the rice.  I like extra sugar until it will not dissolve anymore but it is up to you.  Just be sure to coat the rice evenly with the solution and cool the rice in the fridge.  I use about a half a cup of solution for 2 cups of dry rice.

Cool the rice in a fridge covered.  You can also just let it sit covered.  I use a piece of cloth or just a lid.

That is it.  If you follow these instructions I have found that the rice turns out excellent every time and it is very simple.  Just be sure not to over or under cook.  I use the timer on the microwave to ensure that each 15 minute segment is followed correctly.

After driving for many hours I came across many downed trees on the south side of Mt. Hood.  The trees were all right next to the roads in the national forest which was beautiful but as you can see here very dangerous.  I first started to get concerned when there were many leaves and branches littering the road due to the high winds.  There were no signs or advisories mentioned but it was clear after about an hour of driving that the conditions were getting worse and could be hard to navigate.  Then there were about 10 trees on the road.  Most of them took up about half of the road and I drove around each one trying to make it to my destination.  Finally I saw one tree that was much larger than the rest.  I thought at first that I could drive around this one much like the others but after a quick hit of the break pedal I had to stop because there was no clearance around either side.

The tree had fallen from about 50 feet inside the forest, across the road, and through more than 50 feet of trees on the other side.  This made the tree impossible to move.  It was viced between over 40 trees and with each semi that would try to push and pull it seemed harder to move it away.

Even creating planks to jump the tree with a 4×4 did not work out and a trip that was over 3 hours out of the way was next.  I waited for about 40 minutes but all that was found was over 100 stopped semis on the road.  After seeing yet another tree that was larger fall in the road 1/4 mile up there was little option but to try to travel around.  Be careful when traveling through Oregon with wind because you might find yourself stuck behind or under a fallen tree!  The next day on the radio I heard that these major roads were closed for over 24 hours.  Drive safe.