By David P Fishman

Making Sushi

When it comes to preparing something tasty, inexpensive, and relatively good for you, I really have to endorse sushi. Sushi is a delightfully delicious bit of Japanese cuisine that can be really intriguing and satisfying to prepare yourself. Going out to sushi bars can be fun, but costs a lot. If you learn how to make your own sushi, you’ll be able to save money, eat great and keep the kitchen cool in the summer, because don’t forget-sushi uses RAW fish. That means no cooking, which means a nice cool kitchen:)

What You Need

Sushi can have many different ingredients, but usually comprises of a few core ingredients. You’ll need special short-grained Japanese sushi rice, nori, (flattened sheets of green seaweed) and ingredients to put in the sushi roll. You’ll also need some rice vinegar, sugar and salt to add seasoning to the rice. You can get all of these things at any well-stocked local grocery store except for the nori, which you may need to go to an Asian market for. If you don’t live near an Asian market, you can look online for a sushi materials supplier. You will also need a very sharp chef’s knife or santoku. A bamboo mat is useful, but not necessary, and can also be found at an Asian grocer. Some common sides for sushi include soy sauce for dipping, wasabi paste (the spicy green stuff!) and pickled ginger (which helps clear the palate between different sushi).

First Step

The first thing you want to do is prepare the sushi rice, since it has the greatest preparation time. You need to rinse the rice very thoroughly and then let it sit in water for around 30 minutes. The soaking allows water to soften the rice grains and will make the rice cook properly. I find that 2 cups of rice prepares around 4 full maki rolls (or around 32 pieces of sushi).

Second Step

While the rice is soaking is an ideal time to prepare your components. The most common base ingredient is raw fish. Common species used include yellowfin tuna, salmon, squid or eel. Make sure your fish is very fresh (never frozen!) and preferably sashimi-grade. Go to your supermarket and ask if they have sashimi-grade fish. If they doesn’t know what you’re talking about, go somewhere else! I like to buy all my fish at the Asian market because I know it’s fresh and is of the proper quality for making sushi. In addition to fish, sushi often contains other ingredients to add different flavors or textures like avocado, cucumber, green onion, cream cheese and spicy sauces. Feel free to get a little crazy when it comes to putting ingredients into your sushi roll, as long as you keep it under 3 ingredients or so. I’ve also had delicious vegan sushi rolls that featured bananas, sweet potatoes or tofu. You’re going to require around an 8′ long strip of each one of your ingredients. How thick you cut them depends on how many ingredients you want in your roll, but i find around 1/4th inch square is pretty good for three ingredients.

Third Step

Next you need to prepare the rice. The rice should be prepared in a rice cooker which will make perfect rice AND keep your kitchen cool, but if you don’t have a rice cooker, you’ll have to make do with a microwave or stovetop. Preparing Japanese sushi rice in the microwave can be very difficult and I would strongly suggest you use the stovetop method if you don’t have a rice cooker. Place the rice in a medium sized pot with the water level just slightly above the rice level. Bring the rice to a boil, stirring frequently. Do NOT let the rice stick to the bottom or side of the pan. After the water level is down below the rice level, cover the pot and put it on low heat for 8-9 minutes.

Fourth Step

While the rice is cooking, you can prepare the rice seasoning from the rice vinegar, sugar and salt. It’s this mixture that gives sushi rice its notable sweet and sour flavor, so it’s very important to get this right, but thankfully, it’s not especially {tough|tricky|difficult] to get right. When I’m preparing 2 cups of rice, I like to use 3.5 tablespoons of vinegar, 2 tablespoons of sugar and 2 teaspoons of salt. Put all the ingredients in a small saucepan and heat until the sugar and salt dissolve. Do not let the mixture start to boil; it should never get that hot. Stir the mixture to try to make the sugar and salt dissolve fully and then keep it on very low heat until the rice is ready.

Fifth Step

When the rice is done, remove it from the pot into a wooden bowl. Treat the rice carefully-you don’t want to crush any of the grains. If any rice is stuck to the side or bottom of the pot, leave it. You don’t want any crispy rice in the sushi. It’s important to use a wooden bowl because the vinegar seasoning is about to be poured in and the vinegar may react with the metal. With the rice in the bowl, drizzle the seasoning over it and cut it in (don’t stir!) with a wooden spoon. You are just trying to coat the grains of rice with the mixture. If you stir too forecefully, you may damage the grains.

Sixth Step

Let the rice cool for a while. You need cool rice to work with when making sushi. I like to take advantage of this time to prepare the rest of my ingredients if I haven’t done so already. I also like to tidy up the kitchen at this time (you’ll be shocked how much mess you’ve made in the last 5 steps). In a sushi restaurant this is generally the time when a chef’s assistant will actually fan the rice to help it to cool down more quickly.

Seventh Step

When the rice is cool, take a small hunk of it and spread it over the bottom 5/6ths of the nori, which should be on the bamboo mat if you have one. Nori has two sides, a shiny side and a rough side. Make sure you place the shiny side down. The rice should be spread thinly enough to still see little bits of green through the rice, although you can spread it thicker than that if you have only one ingredient. When you’ve covered the whole nori sheet except the little bit at the top, you’re good. It helps to spread the sticky rice by keeping a small bowl of water nearby to dip your fingers into, so they don’t stick and get messy. Last Step

Lay your ingredients near the middle-bottom of the nori. Roll up the bottom section of the nori over the ingredients. If you have a bamboo mat, use it to make sure the roll has equal pressure applied on it and is packed tightly. Continue shifting the bamboo mat to roll up more and more of the sushi roll. When you reach the part with no rice, you can roll it over and seal it with a bit of water. Then, use a sharp knife to cut the sushi roll in half. A slight sawing motion is needed and it helps if the knife is dipped into hot water first. Double up the two halves and cut THEM in half to make quarters, and each quarter in half to make eighths. Arrange your sushi rolls on a plate and serve with soy sauce, and wasabi and ginger if you desire. Enjoy!

David Fishman is a blogger and sushi lover from Atlanta, GA. Take a look at his website How To make Sushi At Home and follow him as he blogs about awesome sushi recipes, more in-depth instructions about how to make sushi places to get sushi equipment, amazing pictures of homemade sushi and the ongoing story of his journey to become a sushi master. You can also submit pictures of YOUR homemade sushi and he’ll feature them on his site.

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The Beautiful World of Wonderful Sushi
By Chris Cornell

Sushi is one of the most popular dishes in Japan. Japanese usually enjoy having sushi on special occasions like Hanami, Hina Matsuri, etc. It has a very interesting history. It had its origin in China and became popular in Japan. In the past, any fish caught had to be preserved and the only method possible was by fermentation.

Fish caught was cleaned, filleted and pressed between layers of salt weighted down with a stone until it is fermented. Over the time, this process was developed to rolling the fish soaked in vinegar in rice. The fermentation took place in a matter of days rather than months. During the Edo period, sushi referred to pickled fish conserved in vinegar. However, sushi is now called as a dish containing rice.

There are different types of sushi available in Japan. The most sought-after ones are Nigiri, Temaki, Norimaki, Oshizushi, etc. Nigirizushi consists of small rice balls with fish, shellfish, etc. on top. Norimaki, on the other hand, is sushi rice and seafood, etc. rolled in dried seaweed sheets. Temakizushi are cones made of nori seaweed and filled with sushi rice, seafood and vegetables while Oshizushi is pressed sushi in a wooden box.

Japanese eat sushi at a sushiya or kaiten-zushi. Sushiya is a restaurant where the food is served by the waiter or chef personally to people. In kaiten-zushi, people have to choose the dish from the plates of sushi that pass in front of the customers on a conveyor belt. In other words, kaiten-zushi is called an automated sushi restaurant.

Nowadays, Japanese sushi culture revolves around tuna for its fatty red meat. But sushi is not raw fish. As the name indicates, sushi is indicates foods that use rice seasoned with sweet rice-wine vinegar. Though raw fish is the most popular ingredient in sushi, the main element of sushi is Japanese sticky rice. It is low in fat and is a very nutritious food.

Sushi, as such, retains its own value in Japan. This is possible because of the new infrastructure of globalization.

Chris is the writer of this article, you can visit us for more information on Sushi in Japan. Visit for more details.

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By CB Michaels

Nigirizushi (literally “hand-formed sushi”) is another of my favorite types of sushi. The combination of the flavorful sushi rice with the sensory experience afforded by the raw fish is truly inimitable. It’s also not very difficult to replicate at home and requires only the bare minimum of specialty ingredients, so for those of you who are creative or culinarily inclined this is my quick and easy guide to making your own nigirizushi at home.

Ingredients

Nigirizushi is simply raw fish on rice, and this is just about all you’ll need to make it. The rice must be prepared in the traditional sushi-style which takes approximately an hour, but once you’ve done that the rest is simple. Sushi rice requires a short-grained white rice, rice vinegar, salt and sugar. If you’re unfamiliar with the procedure for making it, I’ve written another article that describes the process in detail.

While I generally advocate the usability of standard supermarket fish in sushi, in the case of nigiri it is beneficial to invest in the higher quality “sushi grade” fish that you can buy at health food stores, Japanese markets and from some sushi bars. The reason I say this is that while all forms of sushi are truly an art form, the beauty of them isn’t so intrinsically reliant on the appearance and quality of the fish. With nigirizushi, the fish is cut in a specific manner, placed with great care and arranged in the a way that is visually appealing. And because there are no other flavors to disguise it, the taste is of the utmost importance.

Preparation

As I mentioned, the way that you cut the sashimi (raw fish) is also important. If you’re not planning on going all out, that’s fine; cut it any way you’re comfortable with. If you’d like to learn the correct procedure, that is another article altogether which I plan to write in the future (in the meantime, that too can be found on many websites.)

Once your sushi rice is prepared and the fish sliced into the appropriate-sized portions, everything else is quite simple.

Using the first two fingers of the right hand, simply scoop a small amount of sushi rice into the palm of the left, then squeeze and shape it into an oblong with the fingers and thumb. I usually have to squeeze quite tightly in order to get it to stay together. One you do, place the rice on a dampened surface (don’t let individual rice pads touch each other or they’ll stick) and spread a small amount of wasabi on top. Place a piece of cut sashimi on top, arrange all the pieces of nigirizushi artfully, and you’re done!

CB is a long time writer and internet content provider, most recently covering subjects such as Definitive Technology speakers and the best Definitive Technology subwoofer.

This article may be freely reproduced in any medium, location and epoch provided it (and its resource box) remain whole and intact.

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By KC Kudra

There are many types of rice salad. In general, rice salad has a thin dressing, rice, and vegetables combined. You may have something simple like white rice, cucumbers, and vinaigrette, or you can have something more complex with sun-dried tomatoes, walnuts, papaya and feta cheese. You can combine almost anything together in a rice salad that you want.

Wild rice is also used to make tasty salads, often combined with meat of some kind, sweet grapes, nuts and a light dressing. Rice salads can be made ahead of time, but reserve most of the dressing until just before serving so the rice does not get mushy.

This recipe is a little different. It uses sweet rice, also known as sushi rice. You can find it in Asian markets. Sushi rice is sticky when it is cooked and it has a slightly sweet flavor. The rest of the ingredients are commonly used in sushi dishes. The entire salad has a wonderful Japanese flavor. If you like sushi, this salad will be a hit. It makes a wonderful lunch or even a light dinner. Alternatively, you can use it as a side dish.

Recipe for Sushi Rice Salad

This unique twist on rice salad will be an instant hit.

What You Need

• 1/2 cup short grain sushi rice
• 3/4 cup plus 1-1/2 Tablespoons water
• 1/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 medium carrot
• 1-1/4 teaspoons wasabi paste
• 1-1/2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1/2 large seedless cucumber, peeled, halved, cored and chopped
• 3 scallions, thinly sliced on the diagonal
• 3 Tablespoons Japanese pickled ginger, drained, sliced and coarsely chopped
• 1 Tablespoon sesame seeds, toasted
• 1 avocado
• 8 fresh shiso leaves (optional)
• 1 (6 inch) square toasted nori, cut into thin strips with scissors

How to Make It

Rinse the rice in several changes of cold water until the water runs clear. Drain in a colander for 30 minutes.

Place rice and 1-3/4 cups of water in a saucepan and bring it to a boil. Cover and simmer for two minutes. Remove the rice from the heat and let it stand, covered, for 10 minutes. Do not lift the lid.

While the rice finishes, bring the vinegar, sugar, and salt just to a boil in a very small saucepan. Stir it constantly until the sugar dissolves completely. Let it cool 2 minutes.

Spread the rice in a large shallow pan. Sprinkle it with the vinegar mixture and toss it with a wooden spoon.

Using a vegetable peeler, shave thin lengths from the carrot. Cut the slices diagonally into strips 1/4 inch wide.

Whisk the wasabi, the remaining 1-1/2 tablespoons of water, and oil together in a bowl. Add the rice, carrot, cucumber, ginger, scallions, and sesame seeds. Toss gently.

Cut the avocado in half, remove the pit, and peel it. Cut crosswise into slices 1/4 inch thick.

Arrange 2 shiso leaves (if you are using them) on each of 4 plates. Top with the avocado and rice mixture and sprinkle with nori strips.

Serves 4.

Serving easy party appetizers will help make your party memorable and fun. Everyone loves to eat when they go to a party. Try to include a cold appetizer recipe or two so you do not spend all night in the kitchen. Cold recipes can often be made ahead of time.

EasyAppetizerRecipes.net – You Make the Appetizers, We Help You Make Them Delicious

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