Cooking Journal #16

Cooking Sushi

Probably not the best title. You're probably wondering: It's Sushi! What is there to cook? Actually, sushi refers to the vinegared rice or sumeshi. There are all kinds. Rolled sushi, finger sushi, scattered sushi, and pressed sushi.

The one I like to make is actually scattered sushi, which is vinegared rice in a bowl with ingredient scattered on top.

Finger sushi is the one you find in a good sushi restaurant. It takes skill to press sushi and meat just right.

Rolled sushi is the one you find in a supermarket. It's relatively easy to make, and makes a nice presentation. Better than the scattered sushi type.

I've never seen pressed sushi. I imagine it's a cheap industrialized kind.

The traditional way to cook sushi rice is with wooden bowl. Once the rice is cooked, dump it into a wooden bowl. Sprinkle vinegar+sugar mixture, while fanning vigorously. The rice will then have the proper texture and consistency while having illustrious sheen on the surface.

Does it matter? Having done it that way, I'd say yes. It makes for a better sushi rice. Of course, my motto is "cheap, fast, and easy" and so I don't usually bother doing any of that.

I also just cook my regular long-grain rice, instead of special sushi rice.

As soon as the rice is done, I fluff the rice using bamboo spatula while sprinkling vinegar a little bit. As you can see, I use it straight from the bottle. I don't bother mixing a special solution for it. And no, I don't use wooden bowl to do it.

The result is less than ideal, but close enough to the real thing, that I don't mind at all. Of course, you may have a different opinion about it.

Then I simply put the rice into a bowl and top it off with some meat I have on hand. That usually means hot-dog.

What? You expect maybe some special sashimi for it? ;)