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Intro: |
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Short- to medium-grain polished white rice Japanese rice vinegar Sugar Salt A pot with a tight lid A large wooden, ceramic, or plastic bowl A wooden or plastic spoon or spatula A small bowl (big enough to dip your fingers in) Toasted nori (sheets of pressed seaweed) A small bamboo mat (called a "makisu") Wasabi (Japanese horseradish) Sushi fillings: fresh or prepared fish and seafood; vegetables (can include seedless cucumber, avocado, Japanese pickled vegetables, dried shiitake mushrooms); eggs A very sharp, nonserrated kitchen knife A cutting board Japanese soy sauce Small plates and dipping bowls for serving Optional: A kitchen towel Plastic wrap Pickled ginger Chopsticks |
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| About 1 hour to shop; 1 hour to make and cool the rice; and 20 to 30 minutes to prepare and assemble enough sushi to feed four people |
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Roll your own For the millions who love it, eating sushi can be a nearly spiritual experience. The ingredients are the very best, and they're reverently handled. The glistening, perfect pieces of food are arranged on serving plates with studied attention to aesthetics and philosophical meaning. And sushi chefs may apprentice for years before they're allowed to handle a sushi knife. But you don't have to get all that serious at home. For sushi as high art, treat yourself to a restaurant meal with an expert chef. For your own enjoyment, make it yourself. Basic sushi techniques are remarkably easy and fun, and the results are delicious. We won't give detailed recipes or delve into presentation here, but we will guide you through the rudiments of shopping, preparing the ingredients, and making the two most popular sushi forms: nigiri (pieces of seafood or egg on ovals of sticky rice) and maki (seafood, egg, or vegetables rolled in rice and seaweed).
Often, when people hear "sushi," they think "raw fish," but a Japanese-style preparation of raw fish is properly called "sashimi." Sushi often contains uncooked fish, but it's really a rice dish, and several of the most popular preparations are vegetarian. Hundreds of years ago, the Japanese preserved fish by packing it in raw rice. Eventually, people started cooking the rice and eating it with fresh raw fish. To recapture the flavor that the fermenting fish had given the rice, cooks began dressing unseasoned rice with a mixture of rice vinegar, sugar, and salt. Today, it's actually the vinegar-infused rice, combined with premium-quality raw or cooked fish and vegetables, that's central to all sushi dishes.
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#0606:
Eat Sushi
#0442:
Clean a Fish
#0505:
Choose a Kitchen Knife
#0607:
Use Chopsticks