Let’s Talk Food — The basics of sushi

By AUDREY WILSON

Sushi is a popular finger food here and great for parties. In Japan, a sushi apprentice works 15-hour days, six days a week. For three years, the apprentice delivers sushi, washes dishes, cleans the kitchen, and learns the basics of cooking and seasoning the sushi rice.

Only after several years of working under sushi masters — after the three years of apprenticeship — can he join the Professional Sushi Chef’s Trade Association.

So when you go to Japan, you know that the sushi chef in the restaurant has put a lot of his life in learning the trade.

There are various types of sushi:

— Bara (which means “to scatter”) sushi is vinegar/sugar-flavored rice mixed with diced vegetables and sometimes seasoned clams.

— Chirashi sushi is a rice bowl with layers of fresh fish and various seafood.

— Futomaki is a large filled roll and wrapped in nori.

— Inari sushi is vinegar/sugar rice, with diced cooked vegetables, usually carrots, cooked in a soy sauce/sugar sauce, then stuffed with aburage.

— Nigiri sushi is seasoned rice topped with a slice of raw or cooked fish or seafood, like shrimp, octopus, egg roll, poke spicy roe.

— Onigiri is the correct word for “musubi.”

— Oshizushi is seasoned rice pressed into a wooden mold.

— Temaki are cone-shaped nori rolls, often called a hand roll.

Sushi rolls can be small and called “teppo sushi” with the following fillings:

— Cucumber rolls are called kappa maki.

— Dried gourd or kanpyo rolls are called kanpyo maki.

— Fermented soy bean, or natto rolls, are called natto maki.

— Pickled plum, or ume, and cucumber roll or umekyu.

— Pickle roll is called shinko maki.

— Sea eel and cucumber roll is called anakyu.

— Squid roll or ika maki.

— Toro and green onion roll is called negitoro.

— Tuna roll is called tekka maki.

The larger, futomaki, has been the source of some creative fusion sushi:

— Boston roll is an outside roll (nori inside, rice outside) with shrimp, avocado, mayonnaise, and cucumber.

— California roll is an outside roll with imitation crab, avocado, mayonnaise and cucumber.

— Dragon roll is an outside roll, filled with eel, avocado and cucumber.

— Dynamite roll is an outside roll with spicy sauce, spicy poke and mayonnaise mixed with chili sauce.

— Michigan roll is an outside roll with spicy tuna, spicy smelt roe and avocado.

— Philadelphia roll is an outside roll with fresh salmon, cream cheese and cucumber.

— Rainbow roll is an outside roll with sashimi and avocado

— Spicy scallop roll is an outside roll with chopped scallops mixed with mayonnaise and chili sauce.

— Spicy shrimp roll is an outside roll with spicy tuna mixed with mayonnaise, chili sauce and cucumber.

— Spider roll is an outside roll with soft-shelled crab tempura with spicy sauce.

— Tempura roll is an outside roll with shrimp tempura, spicy sauce, cucumber and green onion.

— Tijuana roll is an outside roll with yellowtail tuna strips, julienned jalapeno peppers and no wasabi.

When you go to a sushi bar, thank goodness there are pictures or English translations to the various nigiri sushi. Here are the types:

Amaebi: sweet shrimp

Ebi: shrimp

Tamago: egg

Hamachi: yellowtail

Hirame: halibut

Hotate: scallops

Ika: squid

Ikura: salmon roe

Maguro: tuna

Kani: crab

Masago: smelt roe

Mirugai: giant clam

Saba: mackerel

Sake: salmon

Tako: octopus

Rai: red snapper

Toro: fatty tuna

Unagi: eel

Uni: sea urchin

The variety of rice should be a short-grain sushi rice called japonicas, which is preferred because the grains cling together and remain tender even when served at room temperature. It should be cooked with equal parts water and a piece of dashi-kombu 3-inches-by-2 inches, and allowed to sit and steam for 10 minutes. This is the first step in making sushi.

A vinegar/sugar solution, or “su,” needs to be prepped while the rice is cooking.

Su for sushi rice:

3/4 cup rice vinegar

2/3 cup sugar (adjust to taste -if you like sushi rice sweeter, add 3/4 cup sugar)

1 (3-by-2-inch) piece dashi-kombu

Place in small pot and cook until sugar dissolves.

When the rice is still hot, sprinkle with salt to taste. Slowly drizzle “su” on rice and mix. The rice should be wet but not soggy. Allow to cool before rolling sushi.

Now you are ready to use your creative juices to make sushi rolls. After Thanksgiving, you can make holiday rolls with turkey, cranberry sauce, and cream cheese strips. Pesto rolls are turkey or chicken with cream cheese strips and pesto. Egg salad rolls are hard-cooked eggs, chopped, mayonnaise added and green onion strips. Summer melon rolls are prosciutto and melon strips.

Texas rolls are cooked beef, cucumber, and spinach. Veggie rolls have pesto, cucumber, tomato, mushrooms, scrambled eggs, and green onions.

The rice must be hot when adding the vinegar mixture or “su” as it will not absorb properly. Once the rice cools, the grains do not absorb the vinegar.

Small Bites

Sushi rice can be left at room temperature. Cooked rice, however carries the spore of the bacteria Bacilus cereus, which produce gastrointestinal toxins. The spores do not get killed by cooking the rice so after a few hours of rice left out at room temperature, the spores start to germinate. Vinegar is an antimicrobial and kills the bacterium.

Foodie Bites

This week, Hawaii Community College’s Bamboo Hale is featuring the foods of Sweden, starting today through Friday. Call 934-2562 for reservations, either 11 a.m. or 12:15 p.m. Please support the students. The tips earned are for an excursion to Honolulu to visit various restaurants and food facilities. The experience is valuable for the students.

Please feel free to e-mail me at wilson.audrey@hawaiiantel.net if you have a question. Bon appetit until next week.