School’s Out: Sushi Party!

Sushi entered mainsteam American culture while I was living in Japan. When I returned home all my American friends wanted to know if I knew how to make sushi. Suddenly everyone loved sushi and people who never would have been caught eating raw fish five years before were now ordering toro and hamachi with gusto. Did I know how to make these things, my friends wanted to know. Could I make sushi for them?

I had to laugh. Sushi has been part of my life as long as I can remember, but I never make raw fish sushi at home. Professional sushi chefs go through years of training to do what they do. This is a highly skilled craft, some would even call it art. It's not something you’re going to do a great job of replicating in your home kitchen. Even in Japan my friends order sushi trays from restaurants when they are entertaining at home. Cutting fish is not something a novice would be able to pull off successfully—and let’s not even talk about procuring and handling fish that’s fresh enough to eat raw. Then there’s the issue of assembling the sushi.

What may seem like a simple thing—shaping rice into a small block the size of a matchbox car—relies on years of practice. I once saw a Japanese TV show where they took ten pieces of nigiri sushi made by the same sushi chef and dissected them to count the grains of rice in each piece (that fact alone is so wonderfully nerdy and Japanese, I love it). When they had finished counting they found that each of the pieces of sushi had a variation of only one grain of rice. One grain of rice!

That, my friend, takes practice—lots of practice. I know there are those adventureous souls that go out and buy sushi-grade fish and make it at home, but I'm not one of them. For excellent sushi and sashimi I’m happy to go to a restaurant and let the professionals—who have sharper knives, better connections with fish suppliers, and far more skill and knowledge than I’ll ever have—make their magic. I just sit back and enjoy.

But I do like making rolled veggie sushi at home—it’s delicious and feels festive to me. In the Japanese families I’ve spent time with making sushi was always a party, something done to celebrate some event or special happening. The prep takes a bit of time, but once at table it was all fun as we got creative with different flavor combinations, talked, joked, and laughed. Last month, when the twin girls who live next door to me here in Seattle graduated from the 8th grade, I invited them and their mom—my wonderful neighbor Ellen—over for a sushi party. They had mentioned how much they love sushi—one of them has even been nicknamed Sushi by her friends—and since they are both vegetarian no one was going to be missing the fish.



I wasn’t going to write about making sushi, but when I noticed that my Austrian blog buddy Gerda had posted asking for advice on her sushi technique, I thought I’d share what I know. I'm no sushi chef, but this is what works for me.

THE RICE:



The term sushi doesn’t have much to do with fish, it’s a reference to the sour-sweet rice. If you don’t have well-prepared sushi rice you might as well not bother trying to make sushi, it’s all downhill from there. You should trust me when I say this. I botched a batch of rice recently (have I mentioned how much I hate my new stove?) and decided to proceed anyway—I really shouldn’t have bothered. The end result was so bad I didn’t even want to eat it. There is no redeeming bad rice.

I use Lundberg organic sushi rice. What you are looking for is a short grain Japanese-syle white rice. Other brands I have seen recommended are: Kokuho Rose, Tamaki Gold, Tamanishiki, Nozomi and Yume. You want to make about one cup of raw rice per person when planning your amounts, this provides about a cup and a half of cooked rice. If you have big eaters, plan to make more.

3 cups short grain rice
3 1/2 cups water
pinch of salt

6 tbs rice vinegar
4 tbs sugar
1 tsp salt

Wash the rice in cold water, scrubbing it vigorously until the water runs clear. Traditionally it is done in a bowl and the rice water is changed 2-3 times, but it’s a challenge to pour off the water without losing the grains. I find it easiest to put the rice in a mesh strainer and let the water rinse it as I scrub.



Put water and rice in a heavy bottomed pot with a tight fitting lid and let sit at least 30 minutes. Add salt, bring water to a boil uncovered, then wrap pot lid in a towel and cover pot (careful not to let the ends near the heat element). Simmer until the rice is just beyond al dente, remove from heat, and let steam for about 10 minutes. For this dish you want the rice just this side of fully cooked.

Mix the vinegar, sugar, and salt in a small saucepan and heat until dissolved and set aside (this can be done in the microwave).

Traditionally sushi rice is made in a large, flat-bottomed tub made of wood and held together with copper bands. It is called a sushi oke or hangiri. The shape allows the rice to cool quickly and the unvarnished wood absorbs some of the moisture and keeps it from getting gummy. You can improvise with a wooden cutting board, which works great and is easy to put in the middle of the table where everyone can have access. Whatever you use, try to mix your rice on unfinished wood.

It’s helpful at this point to have someone around to assist you. The rice needs to cool quickly and it is customary to fan it to help the process along. Trying to mix and fan at the same time is possible, but a bit awkward

Be careful with mixing the rice, use a cutting motion across at a diagonal and fold over. Be gentle, you don’t want to break the rice. Drizzle a little bit of the vinegar mixture over it, fan quickly, and fold carefully. Wait a bit, fanning and folding slowly, and repeat until all the vinegar mixture has been added.

Once all the marinade has been absorbed you should hopefully have rice that is moist and slightly sticky but not gummy and definitely not broken. The grains should be glossy but individuated and the flavor should be tangy sweet with a hint of salt.

THE NORI:



Nori, which is correctly pronounced "nor-di" and not "nor-ee" (a pet peeve of mine), is the sheet-style seaweed used to wrap around maki sushi. It is sometimes called yaki nori (grilled nori). These are sold in standard sized packages, about ten sheets to a package. The important thing to know about nori is that one side is smooth and shiny (on the left in the photo above) and the other side is slightly rough (on the right).

THE FILLINGS:



There are those who might get snooty and traditional about what are acceptable sushi fillings, but since I was once offered cheese sticks and mini hotdogs as sushi fillings—in Japan no less—I’m thinking all bets are off. Put in what you like and enjoy experimenting.

Here’s what I used, a combination of what I like and requests from my guests:

That red stuff at the top is pickled ginger, which I love. This isn’t the pale pink gari, which is served alongside sushi, but beni shoga (red dye and all). It’s sweet and spicy and crunchy.

Going down the left you’ll see: tofu, cucumber (make sure to use a thin skinned variety—Japanese, Persian, English, or kirby—or peel and seed a standard cucumber if that is all you can find), avocado, carrot (cooked briefly), and ume (pickled plum) paste.

On the right is daikon sprouts, tamago yaki (cooked egg), kampyo (dried gourd), shiitake mushrooms, takuan (pickled daikon), and strips of shiso leaf (also called perilla or beefsteak plant).

PREPARING FILLINGS:

Most of these are served raw, cut into a julienne, but the shiitake and kampyo need to be reconstituted, and the carrots should be cooked a tiny bit to make them easier to bite through.

6-7 shiitake mushrooms, dried
1 carrot, julienned into tiny matchsticks (I use a mondoline for this)
15 grams (about 1/2 cup) dried kampyo (gourd)
3 cups dashi
2 tbs soy sauce
2 tbs sugar

Put dashi, soy sauce, and sugar in a heavy pot and bring to a simmer. Add shiitake mushrooms and cook for 10 minutes, until fully reconstituted. Add kampyo and simmer for an additional five minutes. Add carrots and simmer for another five minutes, until slightly softened but still firm. Remove the veggies from the broth and slice the shiitake into thin ribbons, cut the kampyo into 1/2 inch strips. (if you are looking for a recipe for dashi, the soup stock essential to Japanese cooking, you can find it here; for this particular evening, I made vegetarian dashi by omitting the fish flakes). The recipe for tamago yaki, the strips of grilled egg is also here.

COMBINING FILLINGS:

Again, the sky is the limit here, let your taste be your guide. I like to have something rich (avocado, tofu, or egg), and something crunchy (cucumber, ginger, takuan, or carrot) for nice contrast.

For this evening I wanted to recreate my favorite Medicine Roll, from the restaurant Medicine Eatstation in San Francisco. It’s a combination of avocado, carrot, shiso, ume, and daikon sprouts. At the restaurant they cut it so the daikon sprouts are sticking out of the top dramatically. It looks cool, but I found the sprouts were really not important to the flavor.

ASSEMBLING THE SUSHI:

I have a sushi rolling mat, but I find them not at all essential and I don’t use it for actually rolling the sushi. It is a nice base on which to build your sushi, however, and can be used to tighten it up a bit once rolled, but don’t let it hold you back from basic sushi making.

Lay a sheet of nori with the smooth side facing down, the rough side facing up, and spread a bit of the rice on it. I like to spread the rice with a Japanese rice paddle, which is made out of bamboo. You might want to dip the paddle into either water or some extra sushi vinegar mixture, so the rice won’t stick to it as much. You can also use a wooden cooking spoon or even your hands (again, moisten them to avoid sticking).

They key is to not put too much rice on the nori, you want to almost be able to see the nori through the rice. The photo below was my first attempt and while it's okay, I could have gone with a little less rice (it's getting a little thick there on the right). You want a good balance of rice to filling.



Once the rice has been spread (and I could have spread the rice a little higher than you see in the photo below), lay out your fillings of choice. Think about the cross-section of a sushi roll and let that image guide you as to how much filling to put in.



Begin to roll the sushi, making sure the rice wraps all around the filling. I prefer to do this by hand, without the mat. Get the wrap as tight as you can and roll on up.






Once you have finished rolling the sushi you can seal the end with a bit of water to make sure it sticks. I find that if I just place the sushi seam-side down for a minute or two the moisture from the rice will make sure it seals.

Make sure to cut the sushi with the sharpest knife you have, this is where beautiful sushi can get mangled. The ends are generally not very pretty and can be quickly gobbled by the sushi maker.



Serve your sushi with soy sauce/shoyu in a little saucer, wasabi to mix in as you like, and gari ginger.

YUM!



I hadn’t made sushi since I left Japan—nearly nine years ago—but I’m definitely going to be doing it more often (and I have, twice since that night already). It’s a fun thing to do with a group of friends as people can get creative with their own dinner and make all sorts of interesting combinations. With my neighbors we talked and laughed late into the night—happy that nobody had to wake up early for school the next morning.

A Note: my blog friend Gerda, who inspired this post, has gotten some difficult news lately about a chronic medical condition and is having to learn how to cope and restructure her life around it. Having dealt with my own struggles in this department over the past couple of years, I really feel for what she must be going through. If you are moved to do so, please pay her a visit at her lovely blog, Dinner for One, and leave her a note. I'm sure she would appreciate it. If I lived anywhere close to her, I'd offer to bring her a meal. As it is, this virtual sushi is going to have to suffice for the moment. Hang in there, Gerda, there are a lot of people rooting for you.



Another version of home-style sushi is the temaki-zushi, literally translated as hand-rolled sushi. Some people think this is easier than the maki (rolled) sushi above. If you want to see an excellent tutorial on temaki-zushi, check out the post on Jaden's Steamy Kitchen.