Japanese cuisine has gained incredible popularity. Japanese dishes have an unusual and memorable taste and are very good for health: it is believed that Japanese cuisine is one of the healthiest in the world. Japan is known for its incredible life expectancy and a huge number of centenarians, and the number of overweight people there is unprecedentedly small and amounts to about 0.2% - and all this is largely due to special nutrition. The main components of Japanese cuisine are seafood, including seaweed, vegetables and rice. The most widespread outside Japan were sushi consisting of seafood and rice. There are various rumors about sushi bars and dishes that are prepared there, and the prices there are quite high due to their popularity, so many lovers of Japanese cuisine find a way out of making sushi at home.
Making sushi at home is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. Of course, the result will be imperfect - in Japan itself it is believed that in order to learn how to make good sushi, a cook needs 5 years, but who said that cooks in our establishments must undergo such training? So you can safely start making sushi at home, and after a while they will turn out no worse than in sushi bars.
In order to make sushi at home, you first need to decide on their variety. Most likely, these will be rolls with some filling (poppies). It is best to give preference to seafood, preferably not raw, because in our latitudes it is extremely difficult to find high-quality and fresh raw fish, squid, crustaceans and other marine life. By the way, even in Japan they rarely eat raw fish, no matter what we hear about it. Vegetables such as cucumber, avocado, pickled pumpkin, and bell pepper are also often used. And most importantly, without which sushi at home just won’t work out - a bamboo mat Makisa for forming rolls. For beginners, cooking sushi at home can be facilitated by special kits that contain all the necessary ingredients, including a mat, all sauces, nori - everything except the filling.
In addition to the filling for the rolls, we will need sheets of dried kelp and some other algae, the so-called nori, and rice, preferably special, but some varieties of round will do. You also need to stock up on your favorite Japanese condiments, such as pickled ginger, soy sauce, wasabi. It is impossible to replace them with our products.
The choice of nori is a very important stage. Most of the products on our market are of extremely low quality, and in the process of preparation such sheets will crumble and sprawl. For making sushi at home, it is better to use Nori of the categories "Gold" and "Silver", or A and B according to another marking, since other categories for the preparation of rolls are not suitable, since they do not have the proper plasticity. Unfortunately, nori is usually on sale for categories no higher than "Red" or C. In principle, you can try to use them, but it is better to hold them over hot steam for a few seconds before wrapping them in a roll. Yes, the darker the sheets in the packages, the denser and more aromatic the nori.
The most important stage of preparation, regardless of whether sushi is prepared at home or in a restaurant, is rice cooking . Rice for sushi requires careful preparation: about an hour before cooking, you need to rinse it so that the water becomes completely transparent, and then leave to dry for an hour in a colander. Then proceed to cooking. We put rice in a deep pan and fill it with water so that it fills the container by no more than a third (about 250 ml per 200 g of rice). Before the water boils, you can add a slice of konbu to the water - this seaweed will give the dish a special delicate aroma. Rice should be brought to a boil over medium heat, and cook - at very low heat for 10-13 minutes, all with the lid closed. After all the water has boiled away, you need to leave the pan under a closed lid for another 10-15 minutes so that the rice "reaches". At this time, you need to prepare a mixture of Art. l rice vinegar (can be replaced with white wine), sea salt and half a tsp. sugar, then add it to the rice. Salt can not be put, you can replace it with ordinary, and some cooks add a spoonful of sake to give flavor. You cannot stir rice in the usual way - you need to carefully turn it over so as not to break the grains. When cooking rolls, rice should not be hot.
Further, a nori leaf is placed on the makis: depending on whether you make thick or thin rolls, you need to take a whole leaf or half. A layer of rice with a thickness of 7 millimeters is laid out on the nori, evenly except for the edges - it is supposed to be left there about a centimeter free to secure the roll, for thick rolls - 1.5-2 times more. In the middle, you can smear the wasabi strip and lay out the selected filling - no more than 3 components for thin and no more than 5 for thick rolls.
Using a makis, we form a dense roller and scroll back and forth several times so that it is as tight as possible, we unfold the mat and cut the finished rolls with a very sharp knife. That's all.