Salmon & Tuna Sushi

Nowadays, modern rice cookers are programmed to cook all kinds of rice including sushi but I prefer to cook the sushi rice the traditional way as taught to me by my Japanese teacher.  I have written my recipe simple to follow and used sushi mould to make the preparation easier and faster. The following recipe yields two big platters of sushi which are sufficient to appease six sushi lovers.

Ingredients (serves 4 - 6):

2 x 300 g pkts fresh salmon

1 x 300 g pkt fresh tuna

2 tubes wasabi (Japanese horseradish)

strips of gari (picked ginger)

Note:  We bought both salmon & tuna from Metro.  Ask your fish monger for fresh fish which is specially for sushi making.

Ingredients for Sushi Rice:

4 metric cups sushi rice

5 metric cups water

1/2 pkt of sushi vinegar (sushi-zu) - If you cannot get ready-made sushi-zu, add 75 g sugar & 4 tsp salt to 75 ml rice vinegar (Japanese su) into a pot.  Heat mixture to dissolve the sugar, then cool pot rapidly by plunging the base of the pot into cold water in order to avoid distillation of the vinegar.

Method:

Rice is best cooked in about its own weight of water.  New rice which contains less moisture may need less water, whereas old rice may need more water.  Experiment to get the best results.  It is advisable to stick to one brand of sushi rice.

Wash rice thoroughly until the water becomes clear.  Pass through a sieve and let rice dry & swell for about an hour.

As mentioned above, I prefer to cook the sushi rice the traditional way.  Kindly read the instructions carefully before commencing to cook the rice.  To make things easier, the preparation steps are listed below:

1. You will need a large pot with a tight-fitting lid.  Add rice and water to pot.  Bring the rice to a boil over medium heat and then, cover pot tightly.
2. Boil over a high heat (8) for 2 minutes.
3. Reduce to medium heat (5) and cook for a further 5 minutes.
4. Then, reduce heat to low (2) and cook for about 15 minutes to absorb the remaining water.

You should be able to hear the different stages of cooking:  firstly, the bubbling sound and after all the water has been absorbed, you will hear the hissing sound.  It is very important NOT to remove the lid during the cooking process in order to achieve the best sushi rice.  Note:  The figures in brackets applies to my induction hob.

Once the rice is cooked, remove the lid and drape a teacloth over the top of the pot. Leave to cool for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Pour rice into a hangiri (a wooden rice-cooling tub) or other non-metallic container. Spread rice out evenly by using a shamoji (rice paddle) or a large wooden spoon. Then, quickly & lightly toss the rice to separate the individual grains, at the same adding the sushi-zu.  You need a helping hand from someone to fan the rice (by using an uchiwa - fan) while you are doing the above.  This action will result in an added gloss to the rice grains.  It will take about 10 minutes for the rice to be thoroughly mixed and down to room temperature.  Note:  If you are preparing your own sushi-zu, you will need 150 ml sushi-zu to treat 750 g uncooked sushi rice.

How to slice the fish:

Place a small bowl of water with a slice of lemon at hand for wetting the knife.  Fish is always cut on the bias like shown below:

Normally, I will use the Nigiri-Sushi technique to prepare the sushi.  But this time, I am using a simpler way of making sushi by using a mould.  Place a slice of salmon into each slot and by using your finger, dab a little wasabi onto the salmon slices as shown.

Fill up mould with sushi rice.  Then, place the mould presser onto the rice and press gently.  Turn mould over and remove ready-made sushi from mould.

Repeat procedure with the other salmon and tuna packets.

To serve, arrange sushi on a platter together with wasabi, pickled ginger and soy sauce for dipping.  Bowls of Miso soup will complement this dish!

Bon Appetit!