by Victoria Brown: Making your own sushi might sound like a daunting task, but as Jordan Rubin, chef at the new Middleton restaurant Maggie’s Farm demonstrates, it is not as hard as you may think and it is infinitely more satisfying than buying it in a store.

In terms of equipment, all you need is a sushi mat, which cost just a few dollars, and a good sharp knife. All the ingredients, including the more exotic ones such as nori (seaweed), wasabi and pickled ginger, should be available in major supermarkets. Then just watch and learn. In the video, Rubin shares his tricks of the trade – from how to hold the rice and spread it on the nori to filling, rolling and finally cutting the sushi.

Getting the right rice and getting the rice right is one of the most important parts of sushi making. The right rice is sushi rice, which is a short grain, sticky rice and, as Rubin explains, you need to use this because “it sticks really easily to the seaweed; that’s what’s going to help keep it together when you roll it.” The rice is cooked and seasoned with rice vinegar, salt and sugar. When spreading the rice on the nori, Rubin shows us the best method to getting the rice right, step-by-step, cautioning not “to push down too hard and squish the rice … you want to have an even distribution of the sushi rice.”

Rubin also has some neat tricks involving water. Once you have spread your rice on the nori “you’re going to want to flip this, but the trick is you need to wet your cutting board” – this is so the rice doesn’t stick to the cutting board when it is face down on it. Later he shows us how to wet our knife in between slicing our spicy tuna roll; “what that’s going to do is it’s going to lubricate your knife and that’s going to stop the rice from sticking to it and you’re going to get a nice even, clean cut” Rubin explains.

The spicy tuna roll is the most popular roll sold by Rubin. Like many of the most popular sushi rolls in the US and Europe, it was inspired by the California roll and is a type of ukamaki (or inside-out) roll. Ukamaki rolls are a western style sushi, which are rolled backwards with the rice on the outside and the nori and ingredients inside. The California Rice Commission suggests that their development in the 1970s “fueled sushi’s early success in the United States, and has led to hundreds of variations on the first ukamaki.” The spicy tuna roll is one such variation.

Rubin recommends serving the spicy tuna roll with soy sauce and pickled ginger, but without wasabi because “it’s already spicy”. This is one of his favorite sushi rolls, “There’s nothing like spicy tuna roll” he says. And there’s nothing like the making your own; a taste sensation and a sense of achievement.