Chirashizushi

Seasoned rice cooled with a fan while it is cut with vinegar, scattered rather than rolled.

Fish, Shellfish, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains fish, ikura, which is salmon roe, shellfish.

Ingredients

sushi rice

600 g Japanese short grain rice
660 ml water
100 ml rice vinegar
50 g caster sugar
1.5 teaspoons salt
1 piece kombu

on top

300 g sashimi-grade fish, sliced
3 eggs, for kinshi tamago
100 g prawns, cooked
6 shiitake, simmered in dashi and soy
100 g mangetout, blanched
2 sheets nori, shredded
2 tablespoons ikura

Method

CUT THE VINEGAR IN WHILE FANNING, and both halves matter. The seasoning is folded through with a wooden paddle using a SLICING motion, never stirring, while someone fans the rice hard. The fanning drives off steam so the rice absorbs the vinegar instead of being diluted by its own moisture, and gives the grains their gloss.
Stirred instead of sliced, the grains break and the rice becomes paste.
Wash the rice until the water runs nearly clear, then drain 30 minutes before cooking. Cook it slightly FIRMER than usual -- it still has 100 ml of vinegar to take up.
Warm the vinegar, sugar and salt until dissolved, with the kombu in it, then cool and remove the kombu. Never boil it.
Tip the hot rice into a wide shallow tub -- wooden if you have one. A deep bowl steams the bottom layer.
Vinegar poured over the paddle so it distributes rather than landing in one place. Then slice and fan for 5 to 10 minutes until the rice is at body temperature and glossy.
SCATTERED, NOT ROLLED. That is what makes it this dish and not the makizushi on this site: the rice is spread in a shallow dish and everything is arranged over it.
Kinshi tamago: thin omelettes, rolled and shredded to fine threads.
Lay the ingredients in distinct areas rather than mixing them, so each spoonful can be chosen.
Serve at room temperature. Refrigerated, sushi rice goes hard and dry and no amount of warming recovers it.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Japan · All recipes