Im not sure whats in sushi, I just hate seafood, I know there is rice and veggies, Im going to try the vegetarian one
There is usually mushrooms in chinese food, and even if you say no mushrooms they still put them in...but if i tell them i will drop dead in their restaurant from eating one they tend to be careful not to add them lol guess dead diners arent good for business
In Japanese cuisine, sushi (寿司, 鮨, 鮓, sushi?) is a food made of vinegared rice, usually topped with other ingredients including fish (cooked or uncooked) and vegetables. Sushi as an English word has come to refer to a complete dish with rice and toppings; this is the sense used in this article. The original word Japanese: 寿司 sushi, written in kanji, means "snack" and refers to the rice, but not fish or other toppings.[1] Outside of Japan, sushi is sometimes misunderstood to mean the raw fish by itself, or even any fresh raw-seafood dishes [2]. In Japan, sliced raw fish alone is called sashimi and is distinct from sushi.
There are various types of sushi: sushi served rolled inside nori (dried and pressed layer sheets of seaweed or alga) called makizushi (巻き) or rolls; sushi made with toppings laid with hand-formed clumps of rice called nigirizushi (にぎり); toppings stuffed into a small pouch of fried tofu called inarizushi; and toppings served scattered over a bowl of sushi rice called chirashi-zushi (ちらし).
Ingredients
Various nigiri sushi in an ice sculpture
Various nigiri sushi in an ice sculpture
All sushi has a base of specially prepared rice, and complemented with other ingredients.
[edit] Sushi rice
Sushi is made with white, short-grained, Japanese rice mixed with a dressing made of rice vinegar, sugar, salt, kombu, and occasionally 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".
Sushi rice generally must be used shortly after it is made. The Wiki Cookbook has a simple recipe for sushi.
[edit] Nori
The seaweed wrappers used in maki and temaki are called nori. Nori is an algae, traditionally cultivated into the harbors of Japan. Originally, algae was scraped from dock pilings, rolled out into sheets, and dried in the sun, in a process similar to making paper. Nori is toasted before being used in food.
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, black, and has no holes.
Nori by itself is an edible snack and is available flavored with teriyaki sauce. The flavored variety, however, tends to be of lesser quality and is not suitable for sushi.
[edit] Omelette
Wikibooks
Wikibooks Cookbook has an article on
Inarizushi
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.
[edit] Toppings and fillings
Yaki Anago-Ippon-Nigiri (焼きアナゴ一本握り). A roasted and sweet sauced whole conger.
Yaki Anago-Ippon-Nigiri (焼きアナゴ一本握り). A roasted and sweet sauced whole conger.
Main article: List of sushi and sashimi ingredients and styles
* Fish
For culinary, sanitary, and aesthetic reasons, fish eaten raw must be fresher and of higher quality than fish which is cooked.
Professional sushi chefs are trained to recognize good fish. Important attributes include smells, color, and being free of obvious parasites that normal commercial inspection do not detect (many go undetected).
Only ocean fish are used raw in sushi; freshwater fish are more likely to harbor parasites that are harmful to humans if uncooked.
Commonly-used fish are tuna (akami, chutoro, shiro-maguro, toro), Japanese amberjack, also known as yellowtail (hamachi), snapper (kurodai), conger (hamo), mackerel (saba), salmon (sake), and eel (anago and unagi). The most valued sushi ingredient is toro, the fatty cut of tuna. This comes in a variety of ōtoro (often from the bluefin species of tuna) and chutoro, meaning middle toro, implying that it is halfway into the fattiness between toro and regular red tuna (akami).
Aburi style refers to nigiri sushi where the fish is partially grilled (topside) and partially raw.
* Seafood
Other seafoods such as squid (ika), octopus (tako), shrimp (ebi and amaebi), clam (mirugai, aoyagi and akagi), fish roe (ikura, masago, kazunoko and tobiko), sea urchin (uni), crab (kani), and various kinds of shellfish (abalone, prawn, scallop, uni sea urchin) are the most popular seafoods in sushi. Oysters, however, are not typically put in sushi because the taste is not thought to go well with the rice. However, some sushi restaurants in New Orleans are known to have Fried Oyster Rolls and Crawfish rolls.
Ebifurai-Maki(エビフライ巻き). Fried-Shrimp Roll.
Ebifurai-Maki(エビフライ巻き). Fried-Shrimp Roll.
* Vegetables
Pickled daikon radish (takuan) in shinko maki, pickled vegetables (tsukemono), fermented soybeans (nattō) in nattō maki, avocado in California rolls, cucumber in kappa maki, asparagus, yam, tofu, pickled ume (umeboshi), gourd (kampyō), burdock (gobo), and sweet corn may be mixed with mayonnaise.
* Red meat
Beef, ham, spam, sausage, and horse meat are often lightly cooked.
Note: It is a common misconception that in Hawaii, fried Spam is a popular local variation for sushi. In reality, Spam musubi differs from sushi in that its rice lacks the vinegar required to classify it. Spam musubi is correctly classified as onigiri.
* Other fillings
Eggs (in the form of slightly sweet, layered omelet called tamagoyaki), and raw quail eggs ride as a gunkan-maki topping.
Date-Maki (伊達巻). Futomaki wrapped with sweet-tamagoyaki.
Date-Maki (伊達巻). Futomaki wrapped with sweet-tamagoyaki.
[edit] Condiments
* Shōyu
The common name for soy sauce. In sushi restaurants, it may also be referred to as murasaki (lit. "purple").
* Wasabi
A piquant paste made from the grated root of the wasabi plant. Real wasabi (hon-wasabi) is Wasabi japonica. Hon-wasabi has anti-microbial properties and may reduce the risk of food poisoning.[11] The traditional grating tool for wasabi is a sharkskin grater or samegawa oroshi.
An imitation wasabi (seiyo-wasabi), made from horseradish, mustard powder and dyed green are common. It is found at lower-end kaiten zushi restaurants, in bento box sushi and at most restaurants outside of Japan. If it is manufactured in Japan, it may be labelled "Japanese Horseradish".[12]
In sushi restaurants, wasabi may be referred to as namida ("tears").
* Gari
Sweet, pickled ginger. Eaten to both cleanse the palate as well as to aid in the digestive process.
* Ocha
In Japan, green tea (ocha) is invariably served together with sushi. Better sushi restaurants often use a distinctive premium tea known as mecha. In sushi vocabulary, green tea is known as agari.
[edit] Nutritional information
The main ingredients of sushi, raw fish and rice are naturally low in fat (with the exception of some rolls and western style rolls), high in protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals.[13] Specifically:
* Fats: Most seafood are naturally low in fat; and what fat is found in them is generally rich in unsaturated fat Omega-3. Since sushi is often served raw, no fat is introduced in its preparation.
* Proteins: Fish, tofu, seafood, egg, and many other sushi fillings contain high levels of protein.
* Vitamins and Minerals: These are found in many of the vegetables used for sushi. For example, the gari and nori used to make sushi are both rich in nutrients. Other vegetables wrapped within the sushi also offer various degrees of nutritional value.
* Carbohydrates: These are found in the rice and the vegetables.
On the other hand, some fish such as tuna can carry high levels of mercury and can be hazardous when consumed in large quantities.