Book Review #26

Sushi with Style
Ellen Brown

I think I have too many sushi book when I start buying them even though they're written by non-Japanese. Then again, the as long as the information presented is good, that's good enough for me. I think there must be something alluring for what is essentially a piece of raw meat stacked on top of rice.

The simpleton in me rebelled at the list of ingredients. Rice, vinegar, soy sauce, hot sauce, and maybe pickled ginger, is what I use for my sushi. Actually, soy sauce and hot sauce are optional, since I just use Sriracha. Of course, mine is not "authentic" Japanese sushi. No sushi that does not use authentic Japanese ingredients can be called authentic. Still, that just means that sushi recipes are pretty easy to do. It's hard to make a mistake when there's only a few ingredients, most of them uncooked.

I got the book in a kit, with bamboo mat and chopstick. Since I mostly make scattered sushi (in a bowl), as opposed to rolled sushi, the bamboo mat is mostly unused. Still, the recipe here are well done. Even if the illustrations are sometimes lacking, there's enough recipes there to try, and experiment. Some of the recipes employ easily found ingredients, and that's a plus.

If you ever wanted to know about sushi, but don't know where to start. This book and a sushi kit should get you going just fine.