Tekkadon

Raw tuna cut thick and laid on cooled sushi rice, with nothing cooked at the final step.

Fish. Not vegetarian — contains fish.

Ingredients

250 g tuna loin, sashimi grade
400 g prepared sushi rice, as on its own page
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon wasabi
1 sheet nori, shredded
4 shiso leaves
1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds
2 spring onions, finely sliced

Method

ONE FISH AND NOTHING ELSE, which is what separates it from the chirashizushi on this site. Chirashi is a scattering of many toppings over the same rice; this is tuna, deliberately and only, and the whole bowl is a judgement about how that one fish is cut.
CUT THICK, ACROSS THE GRAIN, about 8 mm. Thin slices for a rice bowl collapse into the rice and lose the texture that is the reason for buying good tuna.
FIND THE GRAIN FIRST and cut at right angles to it. Cut along it and the slice is stringy however good the fish.
A VERY SHARP KNIFE DRAWN THROUGH IN ONE STROKE, not sawed. A sawing cut tears the flesh and the surface goes dull and wet rather than staying glossy.
RICE AT ROOM TEMPERATURE, never hot. Hot rice cooks the underside of the fish grey within a minute. Prepared sushi rice as on its own page, fanned cool.
Keep the tuna cold until the moment it is laid out, and cut it last of all.
A faint smear of soy brushed on each slice, or marinate the slices 5 minutes in the soy and wasabi and drain them -- the two versions are both correct and should not be combined.
Rice in the bowl, levelled but not pressed. Nori shredded over the rice BEFORE the fish, so it stays dry.
Slices laid overlapping in a fan across the rice, covering it.
Wasabi in a small mound at the edge, shiso, sesame and spring onion over, and eaten within minutes of cutting.

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