New contest Week70// Let's do it...Do It Yourself👉Craft, Creativity, Drawing, origami, DIY, Recycling and more

Making Edible Art with Sushi

The idea of different blocks of sushi, artfully arranged to form a beautiful mosaic, sounded delightful enough for me. Mosaic sushi is truly an edible art.

But, oh my, this was quite the time-consuming endeavor. For someone like me, dealing with daily ailments and the side effects of medication, even the planning stage felt as complex as designing a whole new house from scratch.

Trivial to most, perhaps, but not to me.

It all began with a lot of image training, researching, note-taking, planning, and sketching for the arrangement.

Each block wasn't just a random piece of sushi; it had to complement the others.

Sourcing was another hurdle. I don't think I could ever get that variety of sashimi (raw fish) in small quantities, and I'm definitely a million miles away from being able to slice them perfectly myself, so it was all store-bought.

And of course, there are always unexpected hitches, like the specific type of fish I needed being unavailable. I probably spent ages at the store, rethinking my entire design on the spot!

For the components, I made Japanese Omelette Tamagoyaki 玉子焼き and Korean Carrot Namul 나물, alongside the sushi rice.

Yes, it wasn't completely Japanese - my goal was to create something I'd actually eat rather than just for pure aesthetics.

No point in making something beautiful only to be wasteful, right? Like those pretty cake toppings that are nice to look at but not so pleasant to eat!

The sushi rice required its own tender loving care (TLC). It's seasoned with vinegar, sugar, and salt, and there's a specific slicing motion done with the spatula to avoid smashing it into a mushy mess.

All this while, I'd been loosening cooked rice the wrong way, breaking the grains! These days, I treat my rice with the respect it deserves.

Once seasoned, the rice was compressed inside a box, precisely measured with a tape measure and ruler, and then cut into blocks using a dough scraper.

I kept forgetting to wet the scraper, which meant rice grains stuck everywhere, making the cutting quite messy! Getting each block straight and uniformly shaped was surprisingly time-consuming.

The toppings were the fun part: some in perfect squares, others multi-layered, with final touches of preserved Sakura, edible blue flowers, spring onion, lemon zest, and even gold foil (leftovers from a previous Japanese cooking adventure - these specialty items always leave you with so much extra!).

A touch of chili and coriander - the Japanese would usually use mitsuba for this, but only a few supermarkets carry it. I went to three different ones and still couldn't find it!

The end result was lovely, but I definitely have a lot to improve on. My rice shaping skills, crucial for sushi and onigiri, are still a work in progress.

Either I smash the rice by pressing too hard, or they fall apart as soon as you try to lift them with chopsticks because I didn't press firm enough.

While the final picture (which, of course, usually only shows the beautiful result!) looks perfect, I've included a Behind The Scenes photo as a bonus.

But that's part of the charm of edible art, isn't it?

We usually only show the perfect final product!

All photos by author

©Britt H.

I'm inviting @wakeupkitty @dreeyor @xiao-aine to participate in this too.

New contest Week70// Let's do it...Do It Yourself👉Craft, Creativity, Drawing, origami, DIY, Recycling and more

Thank you for reading this.

Notes to the organizer:
I hope I haven't missed any requirements for this entry. Please let me know if anything needs adjustment. Thank you!