(PICTURES WILL BE ADDED ON FRIDAY)
Hi folks.
I'm pretty new to mushroom growing but I'm a master of my own techniques in other areas. I can't contribute any info really in the cultivation section but I saw this culinary board and thought this would be a good place for my sushi rice.
Most people don't take the time to try to make sushi in their homes. It's time consuming, it's messy, it's hard to get sashimi grade fish in some places (though veggie sushi is just as good) so most people leave sushi for the restaurants.
Like the one I apprenticed in.
I began working in sushi almost 10 years ago as an apprentice to a man in the only sushi restaurant in our town. I started there as a dishwasher and was one day asked to start washing his rice for him. The story continues but I mostly wanted to emphasize that my qualifications here are sound. I made three to five batches of 18 cups of sushi rice for five years straight and it wasn't until after the first year was over that I finally made a batch that my boss said was 'good' (I was so happy when he told me this I cried. I think he only gave me one other compliment the whole time I worked there.)
Sushi rice takes technique. It takes a LOT of technique and patience.
But with a little luck and this knowledge I am about to impart, you can probably cut your learning curve down to a couple months =) But I promise you will get better every time you make it.
Things you will need:
1) Sushi Rice: If you don't have a local asian food store then probably the only rice available is going to be:
niko niko
or kokuho
I have the most experience with nishiki
But any of these will serve fine. Kokuho is the most expensive but it doesn't make it taste better. It's just an heirloom varietal with a good marketing team which leads me to another point:
There is no rice from Japan in America.
"Japanese rice" you find in America is actually grown in America. This may seem like not a big deal but when you consider how humid asian islands are compared to the American deserts where we grow our rice you find that the moisture content in American grown rice is lower than rice grown in Japan. This becomes important right from the start in step 1.
2) a rice cooker (you can try it on the stove but rice cookers make EVERYTHING easier) I picked up a 3 cup rice cooker for 10 bucks at a garage sale. I still use it for sushi at home (it's enough to make about 8 rolls or 50 pieces of nigiri)
3) a plastic or wooden rice paddle (should come with the cooker unless you got it used)
4) Sushi vinegar. This can be confusing. When you see rice vinegar on the shelves in super markets they often come as 'seasoned' and 'unseasoned.' You want to get the one that's seasoned. The only ingredients should be rice vinegar, sugar and salt and maybe seaweed flavor. My favorite brand is Marukan but Mitsukan is also good. If they don't have the seasoned kind then you will need to brew in your own sugar and salt. You can find recipe's for that online but I'll add one of my own later.
5) Large mixing bowl. The bigger the better. A diameter of 20 inches is ideal for up to 8 or 10 cups. In the restaurants we use a wooden barrel called a hangiri (sometimes called 'suhi-oke')
Here's an average one for $500 http://compare.ebay.com/like/200914337922?var=lv<yp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar
The wooden one serves to absorb excess sushi vinegar but you'll be fine using a metal bowl as long as you're careful about how much vinegar you put.
So to sum up:
1) Sushi Rice
2) Rice Cooker
3) Paddle
4) Seasoned Rice Vinegar (Sushi Su)
5) Large mixing bowl.
6) (optional) fine strainer
Here we go!
Phase 1) Washing the rice.
Wash your hands well.
Use the measuring cup that came with your cooker to measure out three cups of rice into the bowl of the rice cooker. (we're going to use three cups here, expand your recipe accordingly.)
Each measured cup should be perfectly flat on top. NO ROUNDED CUPS.
Go to the sink with the bowl and start some cold running water. Fill the bowl up COMPLETELY and GENTLY mix the rice with your hand. Feel it on your fingertips. Go SLOWLY. Watch how the water becomes murky with excess starch.
Slowly pour off the water into the sink being careful not to lose ANY rice grains in the process.
Repeat until the water is mostly clear. Again, I cannot emphasize enough to be GENTLE with your technique as you stir / wash the rice with your hand.
If you fuck up and drop a grain into the sink pick it up and put it back in.
After the water rinses clear pour off the water one more time and allow the wet rice to sit for five minutes. (If you have a fine strainer you can pour it into there to let the water drain completely but it's not, strictly speaking, necessary.) For large quantities of rice you want to let it sit for 20 minutes. Some places even let it sit over night.
This step effectively "primes" the rice. You've washed away most of the excess starch and you've let the wet rice sit for a little to soak up some of the moisture. They don't have to do this so much in Japan because the water content of their rice is already a few percent higher than here in the states (don't know about europe)
2) Measure your water.
This is the hardest part of the whole process. Sushi rice uses less water than regular rice (for things like teriyaki chicken.) Fully hydrated rice is super sticky. Waaaaaay too sticky to be used easily when making sushi. A good place to start is for every 3 cups of rice the water should only reach up to the 2 and 3/4 mark in the cooker.
So six cups of rice should be at the 5.5 water mark. 9 cups at the 8.25 mark. 12 cups at the 11 cup mark etc. This is why I use three cup increments. It makes water calculation a little more easy.
Since most cookers don't usually have a 3/4 cup line you're going to have to estimate. Make sure the pot is on a LEVEL SURFACE. If your cooker has measuring marks on opposite side make sure the water is at the same level on BOTH SIDES. If it's even a little bit off you could be fucking this up royally.
Be as close to the mark as you possibly can. Sometimes I will remove or add a teaspoon of water at a time to get this measurement right.
Why this step is so important: Every drop of water contains millions of molecules of H2O. Every drop of water will slightly affect the water content of every single grain of rice in the pot (those molecules gotta go somewhere.) If your water content is too high, the rice is going to be so sticky it's hard to use. If your water content is too low it's going to be hard inside and crumbly when you use it. Don't be lax on this step and every time you make rice try to adjust the water amount from the last time you made it to make it better.
3) Put the lid on and push the cook button
4) WAIT
After the rice cooker pops into the 'keep warm' mode give it another 20 to 30 minutes in warm mode. Excess moisture needs to evaporate and the middle is going to be really sticky at this point. You need to give it time to even out.
5) Dump the rice in the mixing bowl.
At this point, after you've waited, you're going to want to take the rice pot out of the cooker (careful it's hot!) and overturn it into the center of the mixing bowl to pop it out. When done correctly you should have a nice cylinder of cooked rice. If some rice stuck to the bottom of the pot don't worry.
6) Remove burnt grains
Wet your rice paddle and use it to remove and grains from the bottom that might look too brown. That rice is burnt and won't taste good.
7) Spread Vinegar starting with the dry parts.
Take your vinegar and pour it, beginning at the EDGES of the cylinder and working your way in. How much? Probably about 1/3 a bottle of marukan sushi vinegar (or about 230 ml)
NOTE: The dryer rice is on the outside edges of the cylinder. The wetter rice is in the middle. You want more vinegar on the dry rice than on the wet rice rice.
8) Use the paddle to collapse the outside edges of the rice first leaving the wetter rice still standing. Swirl and smear the edge rice around in the excess vinegar. Use the FLAT side of your paddle (NOT the edge) to smear the vinegar over every grain evenly.
BE GENTLE. Once the dryer rice has been well vinegared, use the flat side of the paddle to begin mixing the edge rice (which is now very wet with vinegar) into the middle. Think of it like 'folding' the rice of itself. Do NOT use the edge of the paddle to 'cut' the rice up. That part comes later.
Continue gently folding and smear the vinegar all over the rice. You want an even coating all around every single grain perfectly for uniform taste and texture. Be gentle. If you smear too hard you will break the rice germ and all the inside goo will leak out and make your rice too sticky.
Make sure there are no grains stuck together! There shouldn't be any 'clumps' you want a homogenous mixture.
9) Cool for 10 minutesAfter you're confident that every grain is evenly coated, spread the rice evenly over the bowl and allow it to cool for ten minutes.
10) Stir again with more fluffing this time.After 10 minutes is up come back and stir it again. At this point you can use the edge of the paddle to fluff the rice and keep air in it. Really though, this is about mixing to let it cool evenly. Bring the rice that's on the bottom up to the top. Once you've mixed it a little bit allow it to cool for ten minutes again.
11) Fluff again after 10 minutes. Cover with a cool damp towel.After another ten minutes mix and fluff the rice again being GENTLE the whole time. After this part put a cold / damp towel over it.
Serve within 2 hours for best taste. If it's taking longer than 2 hours make sure to fluff it again to keep the grains from losing their air and getting too sticky.
TASTE YOUR RICE BY ITSELF. Ask yourself how it tastes and decide if you should put more or less water, or more or less vinegar. If it tastes good to you then there must be something good about it! From this point make it the way you like.
OPTIONAL: Add a tablespoon of forbidden black rice to make give the rice a beautiful lavender color.
Here are some pictures of work I've done over the years. These are just a few random ones.
Good Luck Everyone! Send me a PM with any questions.
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this is amazing, i'm gooing to work this out!
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