Sushi (3)

Narezushi (old style fermented sushi)

• Narezushi (熟れ寿司, lit. matured sushi) is an older form of sushi. Skinned and gutted fish are stuffed with salt, placed in a wooden barrel, doused with salt again, and then weighed down with a heavy tsukemonoishi (pickling stone). They are supposedly salted for ten days to a month, then placed in water for 15 minutes to an hour. They are then placed in another barrel, sandwiched, and layered with cooled steamed rice and fish. Then the mixture is again partially sealed with otoshibuta and a pickling stone. As days pass, water seeps out, which must be removed. Six months later, this funazushi can be eaten, and remains edible for another six months or more.
• Funazushi (鮒寿司) is a dish in Japanese cooking, which involves with anaerobic lacto-fermentation of fresh water fish, funa (鮒, crucian carp). The dish is famous as a regional dish from Shiga Prefecture, It is considered to be a chinmi, a delicacy in Japanese cooking.

Temarizushi

• Temarizushi are ball-shaped sushi made by pressing rice and fish into a ball-shaped form by hand using a plastic wrap. They are quite easy to make and thus a good starting point for beginners.

Western Sushi

The types of sushi rolls typically found in the west are rarely found in Japan. This is typically thought of as an invention to suit the American palate,. The increasing popularity of sushi in North America, as well as around the world, has resulted in numerous kinds of uramaki and regional off-shoots being created, such as the California roll, the B.C. roll (grilled salmon skin), and the Philadelphia roll (cream cheese). The following are lists of typical ingredients in universally popular rolls.

• The caterpillar roll generally includes avocado, unagi, kani kama (imitation crab stick), and cucumber.
• The dynamite roll includes yellowtail (hamachi), and fillings such as bean sprouts, carrots, chili and spicy mayo.
• The rainbow roll is typically a California roll topped with several various sashimi.
• The spider roll includes fried soft shell crab and other fillings such as cucumber, avocado, daikon sprouts or lettuce, roe, and spicy mayonnaise.
• A Philadelphia roll almost always consists of smoked salmon, cream cheese, cucumber, and/or onion.
• A Peckham roll consists of foie gras, toro and avocado. It is presented as a handroll.
• A BC roll has grilled salmon with sweet sauce and cucumber. It is named after British Columbia for its famous wild Pacific salmon.
• A crunchy roll is typically a California roll with shrimp tempura wrapped inside with the other ingredients, with the outside of the roll coated with fried tempura batter crumbs. It is often topped with sweet eel sauce or chili sauce.
• Other rolls may include scallops, spicy tuna, beef or chicken or teriyaki roll, okra, vegetables, and cheese. Sushi rolls can also be made with Brown rice and black rice. These have also appeared in Japanese cuisine.

Ingredients
All sushi has a base of specially prepared rice, and complemented with other ingredients.

Sushi rice
Sushi is made with white, short-grained, Japanese rice mixed with a dressing made of rice vinegar, sugar, salt, and occasionally kombu & sake. It is usually cooled to room temperature before being used for a filling in a sushi. In some fusion cuisine restaurants, short grain brown rice and wild rice are also used.

Sushi rice (sushi-meshi) is prepared with short-grain Japanese rice, which has a consistency that differs from long-grain strains such as India. The essential quality is its stickiness. Rice that is too sticky has a mushy texture; if not sticky enough, it feels dry. Freshly harvested rice (shinmai) typically has too much water, and requires extra time to drain the rice cooker after washing.

There are regional variations in sushi rice and, of course, individual chefs have their individual methods. Most of the variations are in the rice vinegar dressing: "the Tokyo version of the dressing commonly uses more salt; in Osaka, the dressing has more sugar."

Nori
The seaweed wrappers used in maki and temaki are called nori. Nori is an alga, traditionally cultivated into the harbors of Japan. Originally, algae was scraped from dock pilings, rolled out into thin, edible sheets, and dried in the sun, in a process similar to making rice paper. Whereas in Japan Nori may never be toasted before being used in food, many brands found in the U.S. reach drying temperatures above 108 degrees Fahrenheit.

Today, the commercial product is farmed, produced, toasted, packaged, and sold in standard-size sheets in about 18 cm by 21 cm (7 in by 8 in). Higher quality nori is thick, smooth, shiny, green,[citation needed] and has no holes. When stored for several months, nori sheets can change color to dark green-brownish.

Nori by itself is an edible snack and is available with salt or flavored with teriyaki sauce. The flavored variety, however, tends to be of lesser quality and is not suitable for sushi.

Omelette
When making fukusazushi, a paper-thin omelet may replace a sheet of nori as the wrapping. The omelet is traditionally made on a rectangular omelet pan (makiyakinabe), and used to form the pouch for the rice and fillings.