Guide to Sushi

What is Sushi?

Most people know sushi as being a part of Japanese cuisine. It comprises of raw and cooked fish, seafood and fish roe. It is presented with sticky rice and vegetables or seaweed. Strictly speaking sushi is raw fish accompanied by rice, whilst sashimi is raw fish or meat or vegetarian dishes like bean curd served without rice or seaweed.

What Ingredients Are Used?

Of course the main ingredient is fish which has to be extremely fresh. When fish starts to smell, it is not fresh. Sushi ingredients include raw salmon, tuna, scallops, sea bass, salmon roe, cod roe, cooked lobster or crab and most other kinds of fish. To make the sushi rice, white vinegar, sugar and dried seaweed sheets are necessary. Accompaniments are cucumber, white radish, carrot, spring onion, pickled ginger, wasabi, and light or dark soy sauce.

Making Sushi

To make sushi, you do not have to be a qualified sushi chef, being an enthusiastic amateur can be enough too. Sushi is categorised by thin slices of raw fish being placed on top of blocks of sticky white rice, or within rolls of dry Nori seaweed.

To make the rice sticky, the secret is to add sugar and white vinegar to the rice. That way the rice is easy to manipulate when being rolled. There are several tools that you will need when rolling sushi. This includes a sushi mat which is a small flexible bamboo strip mat which allows good movement during preparation.

Preparation

1. Take the sushi mat and place a sheet of green Nori seaweed on top of it. The sheet has a shiny side and a matt side which must be facing upwards.
2. Add a thin layer of cooled sticky rice evenly over the sheet.
3. Add a small trace of Wasabi paste. This is a potent green horseradish paste very much like mustard.
4. Place some strips of fresh fish of your choice, such as raw tuna or salmon along the centre of the rice.
5. Add strips of carrot, spring onion or cucumber on top of the fish.
6. Use the rolling mat to help you grip the layer of fish, seaweed and rice, and start to roll the sushi. The bamboo rolling mat will help to keep the roll tight until everything has been rolled up neatly like a Swiss roll.
7. All that is left is to cut the roll up into one inch pieces, which are served with pickled ginger and soy sauce.

Types of Sushi

Maki rolls – These are rolls of sushi that have rice on the outside instead of the Nori seaweed sheets, they are usually covered in sesame seeds.

Hand rolls – These are made by placing all the ingredients onto a sheet of Nori Seaweed, the rolls is then made into a cone shape.

Sashimi – This is any type of raw fish that are cut into thicker pieces than would normally be used. Sashimi is served with white radish, pickled ginger, wasabi and soy sauce.