Sushi Rice Recipe: How to Make?

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (slightly more than half 150 g) sushi rice,
• 1 cup (180ml) water,
• 1/3 pieces of kombu (dried seaweed)

Sushi Rice Vinegar Mix (Mitzukan):

• 3 tablespoons of rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1 tablespoon of mirin (sugared rice wine)
• 1 teaspoon of sea salt

What is Sushi?

Sushi is a Japanese specialty that is served with fish and other seafood or vegetables, on top of or into the rice, prepared by flavoring a mixture of Mitzukan (rice vinegar), sugar and salt after a special rice is washed and cooked many times.

How to Choose the Right Rice for Sushi Rice Recipe?

This type of starchy rice, often sold as Calrose type rice, has short, chunky grains and a distinct stickiness when cooked.
A perfectly cooked sushi rice is essential for making authentic sushi and Japanese dishes. Remember that even though the main ingredient in sushi looks like fish, it is actually rice. When you fully master a perfectly flavored and soft and fresh sushi rice, you will have a unique sushi flavor. It’s actually pretty easy to make this authentic sushi rice recipe at home.

You can find Japanese sushi rice you can find in the market as Nishiki, Sasha Nisihi, Tsuru, Hukumaki, Okomesan.

Why Use Rice Vinegar to Make Sushi?

You may wonder why the Japanese add rice vinegar to this rice. In fact, this goes back to the origins of sushi. The literal meaning of the word sushi means “sour taste”. Historically, the way people store fish began by wrapping it in fermented rice.

In order to consume the fish, they used to remove this fermented rice, which they wrapped around the fish, without consuming it. Between the 1300s and 1500s, the Japanese gradually stopped using fermented rice and instead added vinegar to the rice to further extend its shelf life. Vinegar also made the rice taste better, so fish and rice began to be consumed together and turned into today’s sushi.

With the increase in coolers these days, there is no longer any problem of spoiling the fish, but the addition of vinegar to sushi rice has been traditional and permanent for centuries of umami taste.

How to Make Perfect Sushi Rice?

1. Type of Rice
   To achieve authentic Japanese standard and to make quality sushi rice, you only need to use short grain Japanese rice. This is because the texture and flavor of Japanese rice is very different from long grain rice, jasmine rice or other types of rice. Having a higher moisture content, Japanese rice is characterized by its unique stickiness, flavor and texture.

2. Preparation of Rice
   For properly cooked Japanese rice, you have to wash and rinse the rice several times until no more starch (white water) appears in the water. It is also important to soak the rice for at least 30 minutes before cooking. This allows the rice grains to have a better texture.
   
3. Cooking Tools
   You can cook the rice in a pot on the stove conventionally, but the most convenient way and the Japanese prefer electric. it is a rice cooker. Because the Japanese cook rice very often, these electric cookers are found in almost every home. These cookers always prepare perfectly cooked steamed rice with the same consistency and texture.
   
4. Flavoring
   Maintaining a balance of sweet, salty and sour taste among the essential condiments for Sushi rice for sushi vinegar, salt and sugar. If you can find dried “Kombu” seaweed, it is highly recommended to add a generous piece of seaweed for a more umami result and a unique seafood flavor.

Sushi Rice Recipe Directions

• Take all the ingredients on the counter as weighed in containers.
• Wash the rice thoroughly in water to rinse 5-6 water and drain. Strain by gently rubbing with your hand. This washing will help remove the starch in the rice. As the rice is purified from starch, it will have a more transparent appearance.
• If your rinse water is clear enough, you can proceed to cooking the rice.
• In a large rice cooker or rice cooker, add 180ml of water and 150g of rice to cook rice. you get an average of 330 g of cooked rice.
• At this stage, you can add kombu (if it is long, you can cut a piece of 10-15 cm) while the rice is being cooked. You will see a white powder-like texture on the kombu. This part is important for the umami taste. Never wipe it off and NEVER wash it.
• Cook the rice on fire for 8-9 minutes in the classical way or steam it in the rice cooker in its own setting. The appliance stops after the rice is cooked and keeps it at a constant temperature.
• Take the sushi rice into a large bowl to cool it and add flavor. Usually bamboo containers with a lid and a serrated rice mixing spoon are used for this.
• Mix the vinegar mixture into your rice. Cover and rest for 5 minutes to absorb the rice flavors.
• Brass is very sticky. Wet your hand thoroughly.
• You can start making sushi by taking an average of 60-65 g of rice in the size of 1 egg for each sushi leaf. Bon Appetit!

What Are Different Types of Sushi?

Maki : Boiled rice, seafood and extra ingredients; A type of sushi in the form of a roll obtained by wrapping it in seaweed.

Uramaki : It is a type of sushi where seaweed is used as a filling material and seafood is placed on rice. We can say that it is the most consumed sushi.

Gunkan : Gunkan, literally meaning “ship”, consists of caviar or chopped fish on sushi rice wrapped in nori (seaweed) or cucumber slice.
< br> Sashimi: Seafood served alone, in slices, without rice.

Nigiri : Sushi prepared by placing seafood on boiled rice prepared by pressing by hand. variety.

Temaki : Its bibiut consists of sushi stuffed in nori (seaweed) wrapped like a little ice cream cone.