Shoichiro Nakamura - How to make Sushi and Other Japanese Dishes: Black/White Photographs Edition

Sushi may be written in Japanese language in a few different ways as

The essence of sushi is the white rice flavored primarily by vinegar, sugar and salt, and accompanied by one of various selectable ingredients. Although nigiri-zushi is the most popular, there are many other styles of sushi as explained in more details in this book, some of which are easier to prepare than nigiri-zushi .

Whatever the style of the sushi is, if sashimi (raw fish) is the ingredient, the back side of the raw fish, or the top of rice ball, is pasted with a small amount of wasabi . Sometimes, however, wasabi is intentionally avoided, for example if sushi is prepared for children. In that case, dissolve wasabi in the soy sauce before dipping sushi in soy sauce. Of course, too much wasabi will attack your nose severely, so be cautious. No wasabi is used if sushi does not involve sashimi .

Wasabi paste Wasabi is sold in a tube

Another important thing is to complement sushi with a small amount of pickled ginger. In serving sushi , the most popular drink is green tea, although some people drink sake or beer.

Pickled ginger

Sushi can be eaten by chopsticks, or directly by hand if wet napkin or towel is served. The size of a sushi is mostly small enough to eat by one bite, but not always. Eat it in one bite if comfortable, otherwise eat in two bites. Sushi goes well with almost any other alcoholic drinks than sake including wines, Scotch whisky, bourbon, shochu , and cognac, but not sweet dessert drinks.

Today sushi restaurants can be found almost everywhere. Sushi is also popular in grocery stores. Unfortunately, sushi s in restaurants or grocery stores are not always prepared correctly. For example, often the vinegared rice does not have the correct vinegar taste. Sushi should not be cold. Also, the rice ball should not have been hard pressed. These rules are very often violated because, in many restaurants outside Japan, their sushi chefs are not trained in Japan, and dont know the authentic taste of true sushi . Be aware also of sushi vendors who work hard to make sushi look good but are eager at the same time to reduce their cost to the lowest. That is why great sushi cannot be expected from them.

This book tries to describe the correct ways of preparing various styles of sushi . Home-made sushi not only tastes far better than those sold in groceries or even in sushi restaurants, but the cost is substantially cheaper. It is worth the effort to learn how to prepare sushi .