The most complicated thing about this was the sushi rice. Contrary to popular belief, sushi has nothing to do with raw fish. It refers to the sushi rice (su meshi in Japanese means "tart rice"). Once the rice is finished (use less water than you normally would use for steamed rice), you are to mix vinegar mixture into the rice while fanning it. I made the full recipe of the vinegar mixture, but ended up only using half. Looking back, I think it could have used more vinegar.
At first I tried a sashimi knife given to me by my friends several years back, but the blade was not sharp enough and it wasn't slicing as cleanly as I would have liked. I then used my wife's Global chef's knife, but while that was definitely sharp and thin, the blade was too wide and the flesh dragged on it while I cut. I ended up using a thin boning knife. While it was both sharp and thin, the placement of the blade relative to the handle made it difficult to work with on the cutting board.
To make things easy, we did everything chirashi style. Rolls or nigiri would have taken up even more time, and we wanted to eat as soon as possible! All-in-all, I was most impressed by the scallops and hamachi. I've done sushi at home before, but the quality was never like this! Next time, I want to try ama-ebi (spot shrimp) and uni (sea urchin gonads). (Yes, I wrote gonads.)
Sushi Rice
2/3 cup rice vinegar
2 tbsp sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 sq in kombu (optional)
4 cups warm, steamed white rice
1. Combine the vinegar, sugar, salt, and kombu in a small pot.
2. Place over medium-high heat, stirring until sugar and salt are dissolved.
3. Transfer the warm rice to a wide nonreactive bowl. Toss the rice with a rice paddle as you fan it.
4. When clouds of steam are no longer rising from the rice, but the rice is still warm, drizzle in some of the vinegar mixture.
5. Keep tossing and folding the rice mixture and drizzling the vinegar mixture to taste.
1 comment:
your pics left my mouth salivating! i must have sashimi tomorrow!
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