Molasses Joe's Quick and Easy Sushi Rice

Doing sushi rice exactly the right way takes so much time and effort,
especially for an amateur chef, that going out to a sushi restaurant is far
more efficient, despite the exorbitant prices.  And yet, I've had it come out
far better by cheating, as follows, than by precisely following the
traditional directions.  So here's how I do it:


2 cups medium (or short) grain white rice
2.5 cups water
4 Tbsp rice vinegar
2.5 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 electric fan

(Note:  The rice vinegar, sugar and salt constitute "sushi vinegar".  You can
use bottled sushi vinegar in place of these three ingredients; just throw in
a little extra sugar.)

Wash the rice.  (This is to remove arsenic.  You can skip the washing if your
rice is from California or India.)

If you have a rice cooker, throw everything but the electric fan in that.

If you don't:  Soak the rice in separate cold water for a half-hour.  Play computer
games while you wait.  Boil the water, rice vinegar, sugar, and salt together in
any suitable stove top cookware with a tight-fitting lid.  The wider the pot is,
the better and more evenly the rice will cook, so prefer a deep skillet to a
saucepan.

Add the rice.  Turn the heat way down, cover and simmer for twenty minutes.  Turn
the heat off.  Keep the rice covered, so that it steams for the next ten minutes.
Do other aspects of your sushi prep, or clean the kitchen, while you wait.

If you accidentally burn the rice, you can still use any of it that hasn't turned
brown.

If you have a big-ass traditional wooden sushi rice bowl (hangiri), lucky you.
I don't (and wouldn't have room for it if I did), so I use a cookie sheet or a
wide mixing bowl.  Spread out the rice as evenly as possible with a wooden spoon
or rubber scraper.  Plop down your cookie sheet or hangiri full of rice in front
of the electric fan, and let the fan blow over the surface of the rice for ten
minutes or so while you get other stuff done (like chopping up all the stuff
that is to go into the sushi, or tearing apart the whole house looking for your
bamboo rolling mat, which you could have sworn was in the kitchen drawer last week,
but finally having to settle for this dumb piece of cardboard you found).

Keep your hands wet when you handle the sushi rice, or you'll never be able to put it
down.  Wet the knife before cutting sushi rolls.

Nota bene:  Typically, sushi rice is only good fresh; leftover sushi rice is garbage.
But since I increased the water to 2.5 cups (from the traditional 2), it's at least
okay the next day.