sushi

Inarizushi (sushi in a bean bag) Redux: Cooking your own inarizushi skins

maki — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 07:02:50 +0100

Four years ago I posted a very basic recipe for inarizushi, homely sushi that is stuffed into a fried tofu skin or aburaage. It’s been one of the most popular articles here on Just Hungry ever since. That only gave instructions for stuffing pre-made (canned or vacuum packed) skins, so I thought I’d update it with instructions for making your own inarizushi skins from scratch. These instructions will be particularly useful to vegetarians and vegans, since most if not all premade skins are cooked in a fish-based traditional dashi stock. And, for all of you who have had problems making Eggs in Treasure Bags with those small, thin canned skins: You’ll find that making the eggs from your own, sturdy skins is so much easier.

Preparing aburaage (fried tofu skins)

Aburaage (油揚げ) are made from plain tofu that’s been sliced and then deep fried. When the slices are deep fried, they turn crinkly and form an air pocket inside. You can find aburaage in the refrigerated or freezer section of a Japanese grocery store. They are made in the same way as Chinese ‘tofu puffs’ or ‘bean curd puffs’, except they are large and flat instead of small and puffy.

This is how plain aburaage look.

They usually come packed 2 to 3 to a bag. I always keep aburaage in the freezer until I need them.

In Japan, aburaage are mostly used in stewed dishes, soups, and so on. Before it’s cooked, you must blanch and de-oil it. This process is called aburanuki (油抜き) or yudoushi (湯通し); any Japanese cook knows how and when to do this, but it’s one of those details that can get forgotten in translation so to speak. Anyway, it’s very easy to do. Just put the whole aburaage in boiling water to cover for a couple of minutes.

Then drain the boiling water off. This gets rid of some of the surface oil. Let the aburaage cool down before handling further. You can wipe off even more surface oil by patting the aburaage down with paper towels. (Untreated aburaage is about 80-100 calories each, depending on the size; the de-oiling treatment gets rid of 15-20 calories worth of oil.)

At this point, you can use the aburaage as-is, cut into strips and put into miso soup for example, or just cut into half and simmered for a bit in udon noodle soup for kitsune udon. But do remember: When simmering aburaage, always de-oil it. It makes all the difference.

Recipe: Inarizushi skins

Once you have de-oiled your aburaage, making inarizushi skins from them is easy. I like to cut them in half first so that they are ready to stuff once they’re cooked. I’m finding that the aburaage I can buy these days have nice big air pockets inside, so I don’t have to do anything for them to naturally form bags. But if you find yourself with skinny aburaage where the sides ‘stick’ inside, you can loosen them up by rolling a chopstick over the surface before de-oiling. Then after de-oiling, you can gently pry the sides apart to form the bag.

Once you have your cut-in-half aburaage ‘bags’, it’s time to cook them. This amount of poaching liquid is enough for 12 skins, or 6 (2 packs) of aburaage cut in half.

About 1 1/3 cups (350ml) vegan dashi stock, traditional dashi stock, or plain water with 1 tsp. of dashi granules, OR just plain water
3 to 4 Tbs. sugar (depending on how sweet you want them to be), or an equivalent amount of alternative sweetener
2 Tbs. sake
2 Tbs. mirin
3 to 4 Tbs. dark soy sauce (depending on how salty you want them to be)

Combine all the ingredients in a pan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer, and put in your de-oiled and cut in half aburaage skins. Simmer for about 15 minutes, until the liquid has evaporated down to about half the original amount. Turn off the heat and let the skins cool down in the liquid.

You can store them in the cooking liquid, well covered, in the refrigerator for 2-3 days. I haven’t really tried freezing them, but you could try it out.

When you’re ready to use the skins, just squeeze them out lightly so they aren’t dripping. These skins are bigger (not to mention sturdier and easier to handle) than the canned kind, so you’ll need more sushi rice per inarizushi, about 1/3 to 1/2 cup. Here is my basic sushi rice recipe; optionally add a teaspoon extra of sugar to the sushi vinegar mix. You can also try the lower calorie mix with hijiki seaweed, or mix in some toasted sesame seeds, shelled edamame, salmon flakes or furikake - whatever strikes your fancy.

You can present the inarizushi with the open end tucked under and down, as I described in the original inarizushi article. Note that the homemade inaruzushi skins are much lighter in color than the sometimes rather virulently reddish-brown canned kind. They are subtler in flavor too - you can really taste the tofu skin itself.

You can also present the inarizushi with the open end up (optionally fold down the edges for neatness). This is especially nice if you have colorful mixed rice as a filling. Here I’ve used some chopped up umeboshi in the rice, as well as as decoration. The umeboshi gives a subtle pink tint and pleasant sourness to the rice. (I used brown rice to make the sushi rice, which is why it’s beige-ish.)

Another inarizushi stuffing technique, not shown here, is to turn the skins completely inside out, and then stuff as normal. This gives the inarizushi a sort of lacy look, which gives a nice contrast if you line when up with regular outside-in brown inarizushi on a plate or in a bento box.

For people who live outside of Japan, the only drawback to making your own inarizushi skins (besides the slight bother of actually cooking them) is that fresh or frozen aburaage can be rather expensive, compared to the long-shelf-life canned skins. (In Japan aburaage is a great budget protein!) Still, the flavor and texture are so much better, so if you can get a hold of aburaage, I hope you give it a try!

Shell-shaped sushi (Hamaguri-zushi) for Girls' Festival

maki — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:52:50 +0100

From the archives, originally posted March 2, 2007. These delicately colored sushi are a great way to use usuyaki tamago. I know I’ve been re-posting things from the archives a lot lately, but I hope you’ll forgive me - I’m moving tomorrow! In any case, I hope you’ll give these delicate sushi a try, especially if you have daughters or granddaughters.

The 3rd of March is Momo no sekku or Peach Day in Japan. Peach blossoms usually start blooming around this time, signifying the coming of spring. It’s also the day for hina matsuri, the Doll Festival or Girls’ Festival. Households with daughters display hina ningyou-, traditional dolls that represent a princess’s wedding procession. This is because the ultimate happiness expected for a girl was for her to make a fruitful and comfortable marriage. Nowadays girls may be expected to do other things besides become happy wives, but on this day at least traditions still hold strong.

In Japan there is a long standing stereotype that girls and women like very sweet things, while manly men like less sweet and bitter things. So, for Hina Matsuri the guests are served sweet things like amazake (a very thick non-alcoholic hot drink made from the lees of sake, rather like eggnog in color and cloying sweetness), hishimochi (tri-colored mochi cake) and okoshi (colored sweetened puffed rice). Although there were three girls in our house, none of us liked amazake at all. However, my mother often made some kind of sushi for Hina Matsuri, which we really loved.

Here are two kinds of very pretty, girlie sushi in feminine pink, yellow and white with a touch of green. These colors fit the theme of Hina Matsuri perfectly: the traditional hishimochi is colored white, pink (or light red) and green.

The first is hamaguri-zushi or clam sushi, pictured here. It’s supposed to look like a clam, but to me it looks just as much like a little yellow flower. (Hamaguri are in season in March in Japan.) It can be filled with any kind of sushi rice, but here I have made a slightly pink-tinged sushi rice with lemony smoked salmon, mitsuba or flat-leaf parsley and white sesame seeds, wrapped in a usuyaki tamago or thin omelette. It’s related to chakin-zushi, where the omelette is wrapped in a bag shape and tied, but slightly less fiddly since all you have to do is fold it into quarters.

Besides making a very pretty spring party dish (for an appetizer maybe, or as part of a buffet), these work very well as bento items too since the sushi rice has good keeping qualities, and the omelette keeps the rice from drying out. Plus you can just grab them with your hands to eat.

The second sushi is smoked salmon temari zushi - the recipe is here.

Hamaguri-zushi (clam sushi) or yellow flower sushi

The rice:

4 cups of cooked plain white rice cooked with dashi stock
1/4 cup plum vinegar or raspberry vinegar
1 1/2 Tbs. sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
About 60g/2 oz smoked salmon, finely chopped, or 2 to 3 tablespoons of salmon furikake
2 tsp. lemon juice
1 Tbs. toasted white sesame seeds
2 Tbs. chopped mitsuba or flatleaf parsley leaves

The wrapping: * usuyaki tamago using 6 eggs

Garnish:

Salmon roe (aka salmon caviar) or ikura (which are salmon eggs marinated in a soy sauce mix)

Equipment:

Small non-stick frying pan
Rice cooker (will make your life a lot easier)
A heat-resistant brush for brushing the oil onto the pan, or a wad of paper towel
Spatula to turn the omelette
Rice paddle or spatula for mixing the rice

Make the usuyaki tamago. Dissolve the cornstarch in the water. Beat the eggs lightly with a fork or chopsticks (not a whisk or it will become too bubbly) with the sugar, salt and the cornstarch/water.

Heat the small frying pan over a medium-low heat. Brush lightly with oil. Put about 1/8th cup or 3 tablespoons of the egg mixture in the pan, swirl carefully so it coats the bottom of the pan but doesn’t slosh up the sides. Hint: use the same scoop or spoon to measure equal amounts of the egg - I use a 1/4 cup measure, half filled.

Cook just until the top is barely set, then carefully pick up the omelette with the spatula and flip over. Cook for about 10 seconds just until it’s set, then flip out of the pan. The omelettes should be yellow, and not browned.

Repeat for the rest of the egg. You should end up with about 12 to 14 omelettes.

The omelettes can be made the day before and kept covered with plastic in the fridge.

Make the sushi rice the day you plan to serve it. Cook the rice following the basic instructions. Turn the hot rice out into a bowl and break up lightly with the spatula. The sushi vinegar in this case is made with a red colored vinegar, either plum or raspberry (don’t worry, this won’t make the rice taste weird). Mix together the vinegar, sugar and salt in a pan and heat until the sugar and salt are dissolved. Pour over the rice, and mix/fluff the rice until it’s all a uniform pale pink. Let cool to room temperature.

In the meantime, sprinkle the chopped up smoked salmon with the lemon juice, and let sit for at least 10 to 15 minutes.

Fold the sesame seeds, salmon, and mitsuba or parsley into the rice, trying not to smoosh the rice grains too much. Here is how the rice looks. You can just make this into small rice balls and serve too.

Assembly

Divide the rice into as many portions as you have omelettes. Put the portioned rice on one quarter of one of the omelettes.

Fold the omelette in half, then into quarters.

Turn over so the rice part is on top (the weight of the rice helps to keep it stable). Squeeze the sides a bit so the insides can be seen.

Garnish with a few salmon eggs. This is optional but makes it really pretty. You can also sprinkle a bit of mitsuba or parsley instead.

Note that you do not need dipping soy sauce for this, since the sushi itself is already flavored quite well.

Japanese Basics: How to make Japanese-style plain rice and sushi rice

maki — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 20:40:50 +0100

This is the first how-to and recipe that I posted on Just Hungry. Properly cooked rice is the foundation of a traditional Japanese meal, and you absolutely cannot skimp on the steps detailed here if you are aiming for anything approaching authenticity. I've edited the text to make some things clearer. Back to basics! Originally published in November 2003.

Rice is the staple of Japanese food, and making it just right can be rather difficult if you don't know how. If you think you will be preparing rice regularly, an electric rice cooker will make your life so much easier. (See About rice cookers.) You can cook non-Japanese style rice and other grains in a rice cooker too.

Japanese rice, or japonica rice, is a very particular variety. For traditional Japanese dishes you simply cannot substitute long-grain rice, jasmine rice, basmati rice, Carolina type rice, and so on. I sometimes hear people saying things like "But I can make onigiri with jasmine rice just fine, as long as I cook it so it's mushy and the grains stick together". No no no no no. A good onigiri, a good sushi roll, a good nigiri-zushi, and most of all a good bowl of rice does not have mushy rice.

The one non-japonica variety that does work fairly well is Italian vialone rice, which is a medium-grain rice similar to japonica rice. Arborio, carnaroli and the rice sold as 'pudding rice' or 'milk rice' in some countries are also medium-grain, but they tend to have too much rice starch, which is what makes that creamy texture in risotto or rice pudding. Vialone has less starch coating and therefore works well. See Looking At Rice for more information about different types of rice.

Ideally, the rice should be quite fresh. The best rice is new rice called shinmai, purchased within 3 months of harvest. Unfortunately, it's just about impossible to buy rice that fresh outside of Japan. Just buy the best rice you can afford. Once you learn how to make rice properly, you will really taste the difference between different kinds of rice.

Some popular 'first grade' Japanese rice varieties include Sasanishiki, Koshihikari and Akita Komachi. They tend to be expensive.

Recipe and Procedure: Japanese style plain rice

The washing and rinsing steps may seem like a bother, but they are absolutely critical to producing properly cooked Japanese style rice. Do not skimp on this! This is a common mistake made by people new to Japanese cooking.

To make 4 cups of cooked rice, you will need:

A heavy-bottomed pot with a tight fitting lid, or an electric rice cooker
2 cups of uncooked japonica rice or 'sushi rice' (or substitute Vialone)
2 1/4 cups of water

Measure out the rice carefully into your pot and rinse vigorously under running water. Swish the rice around with your hands - the water will turn a milky white color.

Drain the cloudy water away and add fresh water, and swish the rice around again. Repeat this step 2 - 3 times.

Drain, leaving just a little water, and rub the grains together several times with the palms of your hands gently as if you were polishing them.

Add plenty of fresh water and rinse out the rice. Drain and rinse until the water is almost clear.

Drain the rice in a fine mesh sieve and leave for a little while, preferably at least 30 minutes.

Put rice in a rice cooker or pot. Add the water to the rice. At this point you should let the rice soak for a while. The length of time depends on the quality and freshness of the rice. The older the rice, the longer it needs to soak. Soaking for at least 30 minutes to an hour is generally recommended, but don't soak for more than 8 hours or so or the rice will get a bit watery and lose any flavor. And if the weather is too hot, it might even start to ferment! (Some rice how-tos emphasize the importance of soaking, but I think the washing and rinsing is the most critical part of making proper rice, which is why it's described in so much detail here.) Brown rice however does need to be soaked before cooking (see cooking brown rice).

If you are using a rice cooker, just switch on (or if you need the rice later, set the timer; you can calculate in the soaking time here.) If you are using a pot, bring to a boil over medium heat then put on a tight fitting lid. Cook on high for 1 minute, then reduce the heat to medium, and cook for another 4-5 minutes until you can see the surface of the rice, then reduce to low heat for about 10 minutes or until the water is completely absorbed. (Don't open the lid to peek!) Turn up to high heat for a few seconds to get rid of any excess moisture if necessary.

If you are using a pot, remove it from the heat and drape a cloth over the pan for about 10-15 minutes to let it fully absorb the moisture and rest. This final step really makes a difference if you want grains that stick together but are not mushy or watery. A good rice cooker includes this resting time in the cooking cycle, and also allows for condensation to evaporate, so you don't need the cloth draping step.

Sushi rice

Once you have mastered plain rice, turning it into sushi rice (shari) just requires a few more steps. Sushi rice (called shari by sushi chefs) is rice that is flavored with dashi, rice vinegar, and salt.

Substitute cooled dashi stock for the water. Cook as per the above instructions.

You will need a large bowl or plate for the next step, preferably a wooden one made for this purpose called a hangiri. You can buy a hangiri at any Japanese kitchen equipment store, and even from Amazon. The advantage of using a wooden hangiri is that the untreated wood absorbs excess moisture from the rice. You can also use a large serving plate or a bowl, though that won't have the moisture-absorbing quality.

You also need a sturdy rice paddle or spatula. rice cookers come with a rice paddle.

Take 1/4 cup of bottled or homemade sushi vinegar (sushi-zu or awase-zu, see recipe below). Moisten your spatula or paddle with a little of the vinegar. Turn your hot rice out into the bowl or plate, Pour the sushi vinegar over the rice.

Working rapidly, turn and mix the rice, taking care not to squish the grains. You should use a cut-turn-fold motion sort of like when you mix in egg whites into a cake batter. This you do with one hand. With your other, rapidly fan the rice to cool it as quickly as possible. This ensures that the grains will be nice and glossy and not mushy. Rope in an assistant to do the fanning, or else do what I do and use a hair dryer on the 'cool' setting. Keep going until the rice has absorbed the vinegar, and has cooled down to about body temperature (it should be just a bit warm to the touch).

Recipe: Sushi vinegar mix (awase-zu)

If you can't get prepared sushi vinegar you can make it thus:

Mix 1/4 cup of rice vinegar or mild cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1/2 tablespoon of mirin, sake or sweet brandy, and 1/2 tablespoon of salt. Heat over low heat in a small saucepan, and stir until the sugar and salt have dissolved. This is enough to flavor 4 cups of rice, so adjust the amount according to the amount of rice you have.

Ehoumaki (ehou maki): Lucky long sushi roll for Setsubun no hi

maki — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:17:25 +0100

(Another one from the archives. Today (February 3rd) is once again Setsubun no hi. Unfortunately, what with trying pack up the house by the end of month when we are moving, and the Bento Challenge going on over at Just Bento, I haven’t had much time to do post-worthy cooking for Just Hungry. But some should come… In the meantime, if you want to eat a big whole sushi roll for luck today, here’s how!

This year’s ehou (lucky direction) is a bit to the right of East-North-East. While I’m at it, here are the ehou for the next four years:

2009 - East-North-East

2010 - West-South-West

2011 - South-South-East

2012 - North-North-West

Enjoy your ehou maki! Originally published February 1, 2008.)

This year, setsubun no hi (節分の日)　falls on the 3rd of February (some years it’s on the 4th). It marks the start of the spring season or risshun (立春) in Japan according to the old lunar calendar. It’s not an official national holiday, but it is celebrated in ways all meant to drive away bad luck and bring in new, good luck. Most of the traditional rituals revolve around beans, because beans are considered to be very lucky. But there is another way of celebrating setsubun no hi, and that’s with a big, long, uncut sushi roll called ehou-maki.

I grew up in and around the Kanto region, which is the area around Tokyo, so I didn’t know about ehou-maki （（恵方巻き）growing up, because it’s a Kansai region (the area around Osaka and Kyoto) custom for setsubun no hi. Nowadays though the ehou-maki tradition has become popular nationwide. They are sold everywhere, especially at convenience stores, who take this as an opportunity to get people to celebrate, buy and eat in that awkward gap in between New Year’s feasting and Valentine’s Day chocolate gorging.

[Edit: ehou is pronounced eh-hoe by the way, not ee-haw.]

This made me react in So, what makes an ehou-maki different from a regular sushi roll? There are basically three rules:

It must contain seven ingredients, because seven is a lucky number.
It must not be cut, because it might cut (off) your luck.
You have to eat it while facing the lucky direction, which changes every year! This year’s lucky directly is hinoe (丙 (ひのえ)), which is a little bit to the south of south-south-east on a regular compass. If you can read kanji, this page has a good chart.
Finally, you must eat the whole roll in total silence.

A seven-ingredient sushi roll is basically a futomaki, or fat sushi roll, and that is what the directions are for. I’ve suggested several filling variations.

Last year, the Superbowl fell right on Setsubun no hi, so there’s a New York-Boston (remember it was the Giants vs.Patriots or something) filling combo below. This year, I guess the Cardinals were out of luck, ehou-maki wise. (What would have been a good Pittsburgh-themed sushi roll filling?)

You can of course order a regular futomaki from your favorite sushi takeout, and ask them to put in seven ingredients and to not cut it. Then on Sunday, face the right away, and solemnly eat your roll in total silence.

Ehou-maki, lucky seven-ingredient sushi roll

The ingredients for one roll. Increase proportionately according to the number you want to make.

A bit less than 1 1/2 cups (about 300ml) prepared sushi rice
1 sheet of nori seeweed
Seven ingredients of your choice - see below for suggestions

Equipment needed:

a sushi rolling mat. In a pinch it is possible to roll a sushi roll with plastic wrap and so on, but for futomaki the support given by a sushi rolling mat is pretty useful. Besides, they are quite cheap and available at any Japanese or Asian grocery these days.
a bowl of cold water with a little vinegar (sumizu). This is used to wet your hands, rice scooper and other utensils, to keep rice grains from sticking.

Rolling a big fat maki

Put the nori sheet, shiny-slick side down, on your sushi rolling mat.

Spread about 1 1/2 cups (lightly packed into cup; don’t smoosh down!) of sushi rice evenly over the nori, leaving about a half inch or 1 cm gap on the far side. Use your fingers dipped in the bowl of vinegar water to spread out the rice.

Pile up your filling in the middle of the rice. Don’t try to pile on too much here if you are a beginner.

Grab the near end of the sushi rolling mat to start rolling. You may need to reach around with your fingers to keep the filling in place.

Roll over the filling in one go - stopping in the middle will make for a messy roll. Squeeze tightly, and finish rolling.

Unroll. (Practice does help, so do over if your first one didn’t work.) If the roll looks a bit uneven, gently squeeze again to even out.

Optionally serve with wasabi and soy sauce for dipping.

Remember that for a ehou maki you must not cut the roll. But if you’re making a futomaki for a regular day, cut off the ragged ends (which go in your mouth) and cut the rest into 5 or 6 even pieces. Having a very sharp knife and wetting the blade before cutting helps.

Lucky seven ingredient combination ideas

Traditional Japanese

All ingredients can be bought at a well stocked Japanese grocery store.

1 dried shiitake mushroom, soaked in water until softened, then cooked in 2 cups of the soaking liquid with added 2T mirin, 1/2 cup soy sauce, and 3T sugar until very tender (about 20 minutes or more)
1 piece of kanpyou or dried gourd strip, soaked in water until soft, and cooked with the shiitake. Larger Japanese groceries like Mitsuwa often have precooked kanpyou - look in the refrigerated section.
Tamagoyaki or usuyaki tamago (Japanese style omelette)
A small piece of sushi-grade tuna or other sushi-grade fish, cut into thin strips
Some denbu （でんぶ）- pink flaked cod - found in the refrigerator section. It looks like bright pink fluff (the bright pink comes from food coloring, if that concerns you)
Grilled anago eel (kabayaki, 蒲焼き), cut into thin strips　- found in the freezer section usually
Thin stick of cucumber

The fillings I used

This rather turned into a Japanese meets Swiss sort of combo. It tasted good!

1 dried shiitake mushroom, cooked as above
Kanpyou, cooked with the shiitake as above
Finely julienned carrots
Smoked salmon (could not get sushi-grade tuna!)
Datemaki - a fish-egg combo tamagoyaki. I’ll give the recipe for this very soon, but you can use tamagoyaki instead. Datemaki is often sold at Japanese groceries (it looks like a bright yellow rolled cake), so you can use that instead.
Thinly julienned cucumber
A mild local cheese called Bachtel-Stei. You could use something like Monterey Jack or Fontina.

A vegan combo

Shiitake
Kanpyou, both cooked as above.
carrots cut into sticks and cooked with the shiitake briefly
Thin fried tofu (aburaage), blanched in hot water then cooked with the shiitake. You could also use prepared inari zushi skins.
Blanched and slivered green beans
Blanched and well squeezed out spinach
Thin stick of cucumber

A New York/Boston combo for Super Bowl Sunday

If you want your team to win, make sure you’re facing the right way when you eat the roll, and don’t say a word!

Smoked salmon or better yet, belly lox
Cream cheese mixed with mayonnaise
Thin stick of cucumber
Chopped cooked lobster (or, imitation crab sticks if you are on a budget)
Finely chopped chives
Thinly julienned pickled jalapeno peppers
Boston lettuce, cut into long thin strips

Ham and cheese combo

Almost like a Subway sandwich in a sushi roll.

Julienned boiled ham…or even spam, maybe
Avocado, cut into thin strips
Thinly julienned cucumber
Cream cheese
Thinly julienned pickles
Shredded iceberg lettuce
A couple of watercress sprigs

The Mediterranean combo

Cooked and flaked salt cod
Mayonnaise
Finely chopped olives
Boiled shrimp, finely chopped
Salt-cured anchovies, de-salinated a bit
Toasted pine nuts
Arugula

The poor student’s combo

Canned tuna mixed with mayonnaise
Finely chopped hardboiled egg
Thinly sliced onions, sprinkled with a little salt and massaged to soften, then drained
Thinly julienned carrots
Thinly julienned cucumber
Shredded lettuce, any kind
A few capers or chopped up pickle

Think up your own combinations! Just come up to seven and your karma factor is set.

Here is a TV reporter eating an ehou maki in Times Square:

And here is some dude dressed up as Homer Simpson eating an ehou maki:

More about setsubun

The way we celebrated setsubun when I was growing up was with beans. We’d go to a nearby jinja or Shinto shrine (Buddhist temples also do this), where the priests would throw toasted soybeans wrapped in paper at the crowd while everyone yelled oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi! (Demons outside, luck inside!) Traditionally you are supposed to eat as many beans as your age, but the paper-wrapped beans often had about 10 to 12 beans. So, when as a 10 year old I ate 10 packets of beans, I got quite a tummy ache. Depending on the shrine or temple, the priests also throw little gifts at the crowd, and that can make things a bit scary as everyone shoves and pushes to grab them! I never caught a gift but I did get hit square in the face with something hard once at one of those things.

As I said earlier, ehou-maki is really a Kansai tradition. In the Kanto area the only real food tradition associated with setsubun is those toasted beans. Basically, raw soybeans are slowly roasted until they are crunchy and edible. Nowadays, peanuts are often substituted for the toasted beans. Some families might make some osekihan, azuki (adzuki) beans and rice which is a sort of an all-occasion celebratory dish.

A final way of celebrating setsubun no hi is to take a nice long relaxing bath, with some slices of yuzu in the water. Bathing in hot yuzu-infused water is supposed to get rid of bad spirits. At least it smells nice! In Japan you can get bath essences with yuzu oil. I’m guessing that theoretically any citrus would work, but who am I to try to play with old superstitions.

Here’s the Wikipedia entry on setsubun no hi.

Sustainable sushi guides and the National Sushi Party

maki — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:36:53 +0200

Today, three ocean conservation groups in the United States - the Blue Ocean Institute, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium - will each be releasing sushi fish selection guides. They all seem to be printed guides that you have to order (small quibbles: Why not a downloadable PDF so people can start using it immediately? (It seems PDFs are available if you look hard enough. (thanks Avoir!)) Also, why 3 separate guides?) but if you are a sushi aficionado and are concerned about the sustainability of safety of the fish used as sushi neta, you may want to give one of them a look. See the press release here.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium (in Monterey, California), which as far as aquariums go is one of the coolest places on earth, already has a very extensive Seafood Watch database as well as regional (American only of course) seafood guides you can order, as well as a mobile phone site. They are also having a National Sushi Party event on Facebook. You can even sign up to be a Seafood Watch Advocate if you are politically inclined (though as of this writing, the page says they have run out of Advocate Kits.)

Having briefly worked at a sushi restaurant, I have doubts as to how much effect the advocacy/politicking method with have on most restauranteurs. But what would definitely work is voting with your money; if you really want to make a statement, stop scoffing down the tuna, yellowtail and eel, and be more adventurous and varied in your sushi selection.

Fishless sushi

I have repeated this several times on these pages: Sushi does not mean ‘something with fish’. (Do remember that a key to good sushi is the quality of the rice, as much as the neta that goes on/in it.) You could even have a very nice sushi meal by going fishless. When my mother first succumbed to stress-induced digestive system problems, she could literally only stomach vegetable-based sushi (and she managed a sushi restaurant!) but she didn’t feel she was missing anything. Here are some non-fish sushi neta:

Tamagoyaki (sweet omelette). Having a sweet tamagoyaki at the end of a sushi meal is like dessert for me!
Tsukemono (pickles) such as Chinese (nappa) cabbage, burdock, carrot, turnip etc.; also takuan (yellow dyed pickled daikon)
Cucumber (as in a cucumber roll)
Avocado (the toro of the vegetable kingdom; try avocado ‘sashimi’ with wasabi soy sauce!)
Daikon radish sprouts
Umeboshi
Shiso leaves (one of my favorite handrolls is umeshiso, umeboshi with shiso)
Onion, green onion
Dried gourd strips (kanpyou, used in kanpyou maki)
Aburaage, as in inarizushi
Meat products - raw meat (a la carpaccio), ham etc… anything soft, rather fatty and salty. Also cheese. Rare to find these at a sushi restaurant, but at home…why not?

What’s your favorite sushi?

…besides the usual suspects of tuna, fatty tuna, yellowtail, salmon, eel? Let us know what it is, and why!

Quick tip: Making the most of wasabi powder

maki — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:20:23 +0200

Please forgive the lack of photos - in the middle of packing, I’ve somehow misplaced my camera. I’m sure it will come out soon, but in the meantime here is a handy tip for bring out the best flavor in wasabi powder.

In an ideal world, I’d love to use fresh wasabi all the time. Unfortunately it’s just about impossible to get fresh wasabi root here in Switzerland, and even in Japan it’s pretty expensive. So, like other people I made do with wasabi powder most of the time and reserve my precious hoard of froen fresh root for special occasions.

My stepfather (who lives in Yokohama) loves sashimi, and has it for dinner every other day at least. Even when he lived in New York, he liked to indulge in sashimi. He used wasabi powder most of the time too, but had a trick to bring out the flavor in it that he has learned from an old itamae-san (sushi chef):

In a small bowl, reconstitute the powder with enough water so that it forms a very thick, not watery, paste.
Invert the bowl on a plate or on the tabletop. Leave it like that for at least 10 minutes, preferably about half an hour.

I’m not sure how or why, but when you make reconstituted wasabi that way it has a lot more flavor. This works well with reconstituted mustard powder too, so I suspect it has something to do with the mustard-flavor being trapped and getting concentrated, or something.

So if you like wasabi, give this trick a try!

Fear of Sushi

maki — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 21:55:20 +0200

There were not one but two Op-Ed articles in the New York Times yesterday about sushi. Two! It always amazes me how fast sushi has become mainstream in the U.S. in particular and ‘the West’ in general, but I guess this is some sort of proof.

The two articles are Chicken of the Sea by Stephen Shaw (the author of a dining guide to restaurants in Asia) and Sushi for Two by Trevor Corson (author of a book about sushi). While I agree in the spirit of their arguments (Americans or eh, ‘Westerners’ should be more adventurous with their selection of fish at a sushi place, and that some people are overly scared of the raw fish used for sushi), I sort of wonder what planet they are living on.

For one thing, don’t we all know that many Americans are simply scared of their food? If it’s not parasites in raw fish, it’s something else - trans fats, cholesterol, fat, carbs, alcohol, ‘germs’ in general, chemical anything. I’ve been through various food scares in the past in other countries (such as near-hysteria levels over e.coli on raw vegetables in Japan some years ago) but to me, when it comes to an almost constant fear of the harm that food can do to ones body Americans are really up there. There are not a few people who cannot get any kind of enjoyment out of food - to them food is merely fuel, an evil necessity. If these people could just ingest some manufactured nutrition bars and nutritional supplements that are guaranteed ‘safe’ and ‘healthy’ I’m sure they will. (It’s also the land of ligitation. Some of my European friends laugh at the big bad warning labels on bottles of wine and such that appear on bottles meant for the American market and things like that, but ultimately it’s a matter of covering everyones’ legal asses.)

In such a climate, it’s really no wonder that at least a segment of the American population is scared of raw anything, let alone raw fish. One of the writers makes the argument that raw shellfish, which is a part of the ‘American’ diet (while sushi is ‘foreign’), is a cause of more food poisoning than raw fish consumed with or as sushi, and that that’s illogical. Of course it is, but human beings are just illogical when it comes to food: it’s easier to dismiss a food that is newer to ones eating habits than something one has grown up eating.

When it comes to pregnancy and food safety it’s hard for most people to be totally rational or be willing to experiment. While mothers in Japan eat raw fish in the form of sashimi or sushi without worrying, I can’t really blame mothers in America or elsewhere for being cautious. Even though I don’t have kids, I tend to be over-cautious about eating sushi, simply because there are a lot of so-called sushi chefs out there who just don’t know what they are doing.

Which leads to the other point that Trevor Corson makes, about the need for Americans to diversify their sushi fish selection, and for the sushi chefs to educate them about it. I am guessing Mr. Corson lives in a big city with a good selection of really good sushi restaurants? Does he know that increasingly, the neighborhood sushi restaurant is manned by ‘sushi chefs’ who couldn’t tell you much if anything about different kinds of fish? If your neighborhood sushi restaurant has things like ‘dragon roll’ on their menu, chances are this is the case. Sure, it’s a great idea to try different kinds of fish other than tuna. When I go to a good sushi restaurant, I only have tuna twice (once as toro and once as akami, the lean cut of the fish); the rest of my selection is made up of different kinds of neta (the stuff that goes on top of, around or in the rice), of fish and beyond (pickled cabbage sushi is great). But there is a scarcity of good sushi places. Until just 15 years ago or so ago, most sushi places outside of Japan were expensive, special places, generally with chefs who knew their craft. Nowadays, while you can still get that specially prepared sushi from a master, the sushi that most people eat is a version that is dumbed down. (And Japan is not immune to this phenomenon either - there are places to eat sushi on all levels, and the safety of the fish at some of the cheaper all-you-can-eat, conveyor belt or ‘floating boat’ and other places has been called to question.)

In any case, I don’t really think that Americans inhaling more than their share of tuna is really the major reason for tuna scarcity; it’s just the explosion of the popularity of sushi all over the world.

So if you are a sushi lover, what to do? This is what I do anyway: I try to stay away from cheap sushi unless the neta is cooked or vegetable based. If I want to be more adventurous I go to a really good sushi place with a real itamae-san. I do have the advantage of speaking (and er, being) Japanese, but even the most English-challenged itamae-san likes an adventurous eater.

The most basic thing to remember though is: good sushi is not cheap, even if you aren’t gobbling up tons of toro. If it’s cheap it’s not good, because that means they are cutting corners somewhere - with the quality of fish, the quality of chef, or both.

Making your own sushi? Proceed with caution.

maki — Sat, 26 May 2007 11:49:37 +0200

While I’ve posted recipes for several different kinds of sushi on this site, I have never published a recipe for making nigiri zushi, the kind of sushi most people think of is the sushi, in spite of several requests to do so. There are a couple reasons for this, which you may want to consider before embarking on your own nigiri sushi making experiments. One reason, as I’ve written about before, is that it’s quite difficult to get the nigiri part (the forming of the rice ball and placing of the neta or topping) right. Of course you can practice this, or use a sushi former, or even - if you get fanatical about it - a sushi robot. But the more serious reason is that raw fish is something to be very, very wary of at all times.

I worked at a sushi restaurant for a few months, and my mother ran the same restaurant for many years. So I’ve been around fish when it’s being prepared. It takes a lot of skill, training and experience to verify that fish is fresh enough and good enough to serve as sushi. Quite a few times I have seen the itamae-san at the restaurant I worked in reject fish that was not up to par - and this was supposedly top quality fish that had been supplied to them by one of the handful of fish wholesalers in New York, a sushi mecca outside of Japan if there ever was one.

How can you be sure that the raw fish you are getting is safe to eat? Buying from a reputatable source is essential, and you must buy sushi or sashimi-grade fish only. Something to keep in mind though is that the best sushi-grade fish is snapped up by the restaurants. In Japan, there’s such a demand for raw fish that the supply is reasonably good, and I would tentatively say that the same holds true for large cities outside of Japan with many sushi-savvy consumers.

Here in Zürich, the only raw fish I eat is tuna, which is sold as sushi-grade. I stay away from all other raw fish - this is a landlocked country with not much of a tradition of preparing fresh sea fish. (Freshwater fish in general are not fit for sushi.) In New York, I occasionally got some sashimi from a Japanese grocery store, or sushi-grade fish from Citarella, but I didn’t go beyond that. I don’t have the strongest stomach to begin with and there’s nothing worse than the hours of agony when you get even a mild case of food poisoning.

Another problem with an amateur preparing nigiri zushi is that they tend to handle it way too long. Hands are warm, and warm raw fish is not a good thing. Notice how your favorite sushi chef’s hands work very rapidly and lightly (if he’s a good one, of course).

So, if you do want to try making your own nigiri zushi, or using raw fish in another manner such as as sashimi or in hand rolls, always proceed with caution. For myself, I prefer to have nigiri at a good sushi restaurant.

(I should also point out the common misconception that sushi means raw fish. Sushi in fact refers to the flavored rice. Any dish made with sushi rice is therefore sushi, and sushi does not have to use raw fish, or any fish at all.)

The sushi that knocked me out with a vicious punch, and the perils of food blogging

maki — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 02:40:39 +0200

Yesterday, I had some takeout sushi that was so terrible that I still shudder, more than 24 hours later, thinking about it.

No it didn’t make me physically sick. I did not get food poisoning. But it was bloody awful. It was sold as ‘fresh’ sushi (and it certainly hadn’t been frozen), but it had been refrigerated for some time, for who knows how long. (It had a ‘sell-by date’ but not a ‘made-on date’. Sushi must, must, be eaten the same day it’s made.) The rice was mealy, the grains hard. The neta (the fish) on the nigiri, salmon and tuna, was mushy and utterly tasteless. The rolls, filled with cucumber and some sort of tuna mix, were no better.

To add a crowning insult, even the soy sauce included in little plastic fish shaped bottles was inedible. It smelled like thinned out Maggi Würze* with an added slightly singed aroma.

The two packs we got - 5 pieces of nigiri with 4 roll pieces, and another pack of 6 roll pieces, came out to 40 CHF in total (about USD $32). 40 francs for something utterly inedible.

Now, this is sushi that’s sold in one of the major supermarkets. (Lest you wonder why in the world we even bought such a thing in the first place, I was curious, ever optimistic and prepared to be surprised positively.) I did actually take pictures of the offending sushi, and thought about plastering it here with pithy skull and crossbones signs on them or something.

Instead, we called up the customer service department of said supermarket company - the first time I’ve ever been compelled to do such a thing, incidentally. The lady who took the call actually listened, to give her full credit, and promised that they would investigate the matter. She also said that we would be eligible for a full refund, though that wasn’t the point of making that call. I was more upset by the fact that a nation like Switzerland, that may not be familiar with how sushi should taste, is subjected to such a horrible bastardization of a food that has come to represent the cuisine of my home country. We agreed to send her a detailed letter explaining what we found wrong with the product. We’ll see if anything comes out of it. I would really prefer they stopped selling such abominations altogether if they can’t figure out a distribution system that allows them to sell edible sushi.

What’s stopped me fron ranting specifically about said sushi product with names and all here is that it’s become more and more obvious to me that, for better or worse, a few people do rely on what I say about things. It’s not only me, of course: it’s all bloggers who have established a regular readership. I find it easy to be positive and recommend a product that I genuinely like. I also find it easier to not recommend something online, such as a store or a web service, that people and see and check out for themselves beforehand.

Negative reviews of things like products or restaurants are something else though. This is why there aren’t that many restaurant reviews here, for example. The few times I do talk about specific restaurants, especially the ‘destination’ type very expensive places here, they are only of places where the experience was very positive, and they have lots of photographic evidence (yep I’m one of those annoying people taking pictures of everything, though I never ever use the flash). I’ve been to plenty of other restaurants that I haven’t talked about publicly.

I may be over-cautious and not spontaneous enough, but I’d rather be that than try to rush to condemn something, as seems to be the thing to do sometimes on blogs and forums these days.

Oh yes, and if it weren’t for the sense of duty I felt to be thorough, I’d have spit out that awful sushi after the first bite instead of sampling every damned piece.

*Maggi Würze is a brown sauce that is often seen in the condiments tray of lesser restaurants in Switzerland. It’s so ubiquitous that it even has a nickname, Machi. It has Marmite - Bovril like characteristics, but not in a positive way. And it’s definitely not soy sauce.

Tiny kaiten sushi-ya

maki — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 13:32:13 +0100

I normally stay away from kaiten-zushi (kaiten sushi) or conveyor-belt sushi restaurants, since the quality can be iffy. But I could really go for this adorable miniature kaiten-zushi miniature set! (I’m not sure why the itamae-san (sushi chef) has Angelina Jolie lips, but it’s oddly compelling.) It’s a new themed set from Re-Ment (US site) (Japanese site), a Japanese company that makes amazingly detailed die-cast miniatures called Puchi Petites, mostly of food and related items like cooking equipment, but of other things too. The miniatures started out as omake, or free gifts that came with the purchase of candy, but the miniatures have become so popular that the candy, while it’s still included, is now a mere afterthought.

You can get Re-Ment miniatures on eBay, in a few stores in the U.S., many stores throughout Japan, or by mailorder from JList. The U.S. product lines are different from the Japanese ones, though equally cute. Beware though: once you get into collecting Re-Ment, it’s hard to turn back. It’s highly addictive. There are a lot of diehard Re-Ment collectors and fans in Japan and elsewhere - there’s even a Re-Ment Addicts group on flickr.

I love cute non-edible food in general, especially if it’s tiny..I’ve even thought about creating a blog just about non-edible depictions of food, if I could ever find the time for it….

sushi

Inarizushi (sushi in a bean bag) Redux: Cooking your own inarizushi skins

Preparing aburaage (fried tofu skins)

Recipe: Inarizushi skins

Shell-shaped sushi (Hamaguri-zushi) for Girls' Festival

Hamaguri-zushi (clam sushi) or yellow flower sushi

Assembly

Japanese Basics: How to make Japanese-style plain rice and sushi rice

Recipe and Procedure: Japanese style plain rice

Sushi rice

Recipe: Sushi vinegar mix (awase-zu)

See also

Ehoumaki (ehou maki): Lucky long sushi roll for Setsubun no hi

Ehou-maki, lucky seven-ingredient sushi roll

Rolling a big fat maki

Lucky seven ingredient combination ideas

Traditional Japanese

The fillings I used

A vegan combo

A New York/Boston combo for Super Bowl Sunday

Ham and cheese combo

The Mediterranean combo

The poor student’s combo

More about setsubun

See also

Sustainable sushi guides and the National Sushi Party

Fishless sushi

What’s your favorite sushi?

See also

Quick tip: Making the most of wasabi powder

Fear of Sushi

Making your own sushi? Proceed with caution.

The sushi that knocked me out with a vicious punch, and the perils of food blogging

Tiny kaiten sushi-ya