Sushi Rice / Sushi-meshi [The Basic For Sushi]

Sushi rice or vinegar-ed rice in English, 寿司飯 (read as sushi-meshi) or 舎利/シャリ (read as Shari) in Japanese, whatever you call it, they are all referring to the same thing - the basic ingredient for all kind of sushi. The taste of sushi-meshi is vary among sushi chefs in term of sweetness and sourness. Hence, feel free to adjust the amount of the sugar and vinegar, or the vinegar dressing, according to your taste.

In this post, I have also included "recipe" for hand-vinegar at the end of the post. Do remember to prepare one before starting getting your hands-on the roll. For preparing sushi rice, please spend few minutes take note of the following important points:

• It is mentioned in Japanese Home Cooks that rice for cooking sushi rice should be soaked before cooking. In addition to it, as the kitchen gadgets getting more advance, if an IH pressure rice cooker is used and normal rice cooking function is selected, rice can be cooked without soaking in advance.
• If using premixed sushi vinegar (寿司醋) [Sushi vinegar and rice vinegar are two different things], it can be used straight away from the bottle without adding sugar or salt unless sweeter or saltier sushi-meshi is preferred.
• If using a wooden mixing bowl or barrel (known as hangiri/handai in Japanese), wet the bowl/barrel with water then pat-dry using a clean kitchen towel. This is to prevent the wooden bowl/barrel from absorbing sushi vinegar when preparing sushi rice.
  

Ingredients:

3 rice cups uncooked short-grain rice / Japanese rice

Water

Seasoning:

70 ml rice vinegar / 白米醋

3 tbsp sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

Method:

1. Rinse rice until water is clear, put rice into rice cooker pot and fill with water up to mark "3". Soak rice for at least 2 hours then cook as usual.
2. For the seasoning, combine all seasoning ingredients in a bowl and stir till sugar is dissolved. Set aside.
3. Transfer cooked rice into a wooden or non-metal bowl, add in seasoning gradually while the rice still hot and mix well. After mixing fan a little to cool the rice down rapidly to the body temperature (I used "room temperature" for the recipe to be publish in Malaysia) then cover it with a clean damp towel. Sushi rice is ready.

For shaping the sushi, hand-vinegar (手醋 or te-zu in Japanese) is used to prevent sushi rice from sticking on the hands. Dip fingers in the hand-vinegar, shake gently to remove excess solution then rub each palm with fingers.

Hand-vinegar(手醋):
In a bowl, mix together 1 part of rice vinegar with 2 parts of water. Ready to use.

Stay-tuned for sushi recipes or click the label "sushi" for existing sushi recipes on the blog.

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Meatballs-Bamboo Shoot Soup [How To Prepare Fresh Bamboo Shoot]

Spring in Kyoto is all about sakura and spring vegetables. We are living in the rural area of southern Kyoto, the advantage of living in this area is that we get to taste all fresh local fruits and vegetables in all seasons. For free, sometimes. Bamboo shoot season is just about to over, we received quite a few from hb's friends last few weeks. This is one of the latest bamboo shoot dish I prepared and photographed the last bowl. I like this soup very much with lots of pepper, ingredients used and consistency are similar to sour-spicy soup (酸辣汤).

Fresh bamboo shoot is abundant in the country sides but precious in the cities, same as in Malaysia. I was lucky to live in a village in Malaysia my dad used to "hunt" for fresh bamboo shoot in the farm during Chinese new year period. Preparing fresh bamboo shoot sounds hard but it is actually easier than it seems to be. My family method is to boil it with rice water (water from washing the rice), and Japanese method is boiling it with rice bran (kome nuka/米ぬか). It can be boiled unpeeled, partially peeled or peeled. I tried both partially peeled and whole peeled method, prefer the latter as all my pots are small.

This is how I prepare bamboo shoots:

1. Make a slit with a sharp knife, cut from bottom side as it is softer and easier to cut. Then, use the knife to force open the outer skin, it will be peeled off easily. Or, you can peel the outer skin layer by layer if you wish.
2. Cut off the tip, peel off the remaining skin with knife. 
3. Put 2 tbsp nuka in a teabag or a muslin pocket, put in the pot together with peeled bamboo shoots. Fill in just enough water to float the bamboo shoot.
4. Turn the heat on, bring to a boil then simmer with pot lid ajar for an hour. Turn the heat off, set aside and let the whole pot to cool down completely. 
5. Rinse and cut into into size preferred. 
6. It can be kept in the refrigerator for about a week, submerge it in water and remember to change the water daily.  

 

Meatballs-Bamboo Shoot Soup　／肉丸竹笋羹

Ingredients:
Meatball:

• 300 g minced chicken / pork
• 1 tbsp sake or cooking wine
• 1 tbsp katakuriko
• Salt
• Ground white pepper
• Garlic powder
• 2-3 tbsp cold water
• 2 tbsp chopped spring onion

Soup:

• 300 g bamboo shoot (after boiled), sliced
• 1 small carrot, sliced
• 2 litres water
• 1 tsp chicken soup powder
• 1 no. large egg, lightly beaten
• 2 tbsp katakuriko, dissolve in some water
• 1 tsp garlic oil
• Salt to taste
• Chopped spring onion for garnish

Method:

1. To prepare meatball, mix together all ingredients for meatball then mix with chopsticks, in same direction, until the mixture is sticky and hard to mix. Set aside.
2. Bring water to a boil, then turn the heat to lowest. To make meatball, wet one hand with cold water then grab some meat mixture. Make a small "O" shape with thumb and pointer finger and squeeze the fish paste out through the "O" shape. It will form a small ball eventually, scrap it off with a spoon and drop it into the pot of water.
3. Turn the heat up a little, cook until all meatballs floating on the surface.
4. Add in bamboo shoot and carrot, bring to a boil. Add in chicken powder and salt to taste.
5. Add in katakuriko solution, then add in egg in  stream while swirling the soup slowly with ladle.
6. Lastly, add in garlic oil and stir to mix. Transfer to serving bowls, garnish with spring onion and serve warm.

 

Below are some of the bamboo shoot dishes I cooked this spring. Takenoko gohan (bamboo shoot rice), takenoko tsukemono (bamboo shoot pickle), shiitake-bamboo shoot stew (Chinese style), and chicken-bamboo shoot-zucchini cream stew.

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Braised Baby Yam With Squid [Y3K Recipes Issue no. 69]

 

Squid or more commonly said as Sotong (in Malay word among Malaysian), is one of my favourite seafood especially the Sambal Sotong, Butter-Oat Squid, and Calamari Ring. Squid, sotong, or calamari? Whatever it is called, I love it!

Squid (いか/烏賊 both read as ika) in Japan is relatively cheap a large squid (about 200g) selling at 100 yen only, perhaps that is the reason why it is found in yakisoba (焼きそば/Japanese-style fried noodles) and okonomiyaki(お好み焼き). Recently I found out that our little boy Sean likes to eat pan-grilled squid tentacles with salt and pepper. When asked, he said it was "yao-yao" in Mandarin (kiddy language, referring to something will bite such as insect) and repeated it with a creepy tone. 

Well, this braise squid (いかと里芋の煮物 / Ika to satoimo no nimono ) is a home-cook dish when the fresh baby yam is abundant in Autumn. Smooth and soft baby yam will be melting in the mouth while squid maintains its firm texture (but not hard).

Please note, if using frozen baby yam step one should be skipped. I used frozen yam that shaped and looked like fish ball.

Ingredients:

• 1 large squid, clean and cut into bite size
• 200 g baby yam, peel and cut into chunks
• Pinch of salt
• 150 ml dashi

A:

• 2 tbsp sake
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp mirin
• 2 tbsp shoyu

Method:

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil, add pinch of salt and boil baby yam for about 5 minutes. Drain well and put aside.
2. Combine all ingredients A in a pot, bring to a boil then add in squid. Cook squid with high heat for 2 minutes. Remove squid and put aside.
3. Add dashi  and baby yam into the pot with sauce, cook with low heat till yam is softened and the sauce is reduced.
4. Add in squid and mix gently to coat with sauce. Serve warm.

This recipe is featured in Y3K Recipes issue no. 69, along with three other recipes.

 

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