Imperial Public Library holds sushi and dumpling cooking class

IMPERIAL – Adding to their list of events, the Imperial Public Library played host to an adult cooking class Thursday, May 25, where attendees learned tips and tricks for making sushi at home along with Japanese steamed dumplings.

The options on the cooking class menu consisted of a California roll, spicy tuna roll, and pork steamed dumplings.

Diana Gomez, who is a culinary graduate from Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in San Francisco, taught the class. She is currently teaching at Calipatria High School, leading her students in new and traditional ways of cooking a wide variety of dishes.

“This event was generated by a grant that was given to the City of Imperial and in order to get a poll on what type of cooking class to hold, we took a poll on social media and the public’s choice was a sushi class,” said Instructor Gomez.

During the evening, the students started by learning the proper way to slice the different cuts of fish like salmon and tuna and how to make a spicy mayo sauce to give the fish and crab meat a little kick.

With the protein cut, the students learned how to make sushi rice so that it had a nice sticky texture. The key was to cook your rice and then add vinegar and sugar to the pot for the rice to absorb, which gives it a nice sticky texture for the sushi rolls.

Once students had their ingredients ready, they placed nori (seaweed) onto the sushi mats where rice and all other ingredients were added to make the different types of rolls.

Following the sushi portion of the class, the students used steam towers to cook the dumplings that they made by hand. The ingredients consisted of one pound of ground pork, three green onions (thinly sliced), 2 inches of fresh ginger, four cloves of garlic (minced), ¼ cup of reduced-sodium soy sauce, two tablespoons of sesame oil, and fourteen ounces of packaged wonton wrappers.

The recipe also called for a dipping sauce that consisted of ¼ cup of soy sauce, two tablespoons of water, one tablespoon of rice vinegar, one green onion (thinly sliced), and a teaspoon of sesame oil.

“I hope that this class has taught our attendees that cooking does not have to be daunting and a good place to start is by using ingredients that are to your liking so you can have a good experience cooking and enjoying the dishes they make,” said Gomez.