Journal lingqi's Journal: March 23rd, 2004 3
March 23rd 2004 (6:48pm)
I made an attempt at making sushi (like the simple-looking "piece of fish over a gob of rice" nigiri sushi).
A local supermarket had maguro (tuna) on sale this past weekend, everything 50% off. The sale included more high-end items like oo-toro. Usually, oo-toro sells for something insane, like 2,000 yen per 100 grams (translates to about 80 dollars per pound - about 1/5 of the price of gold). With the 50% off, it sells for only about half-insane, the one I got was 163 grams for a bit less than 1,500 yen.
Tuna and toro are also always separated into different levels of priciness. The usual maguro (dark red colour) are the cheapest, and then you have chu-toro (medium grade toro, usually a lighter shade of red) before hitting the jackpot at oo-toro (big-toro, technically), at a pink marble texture.
Then there are different grades of tuna. Hon-maguro is supposed to be the best kind, followed by some various other stuff that I am too confused about to name here. The price (before the 50% off) was something like this:
(per 100 grams)
maguro (minami): 580
maguro (hon): 980
chu toro (hon): 1580
oo-toro (hon): 1780 (usually more like 1980, though)
In any case, compared to the usual prices, it was a steal when oo-toro is discounted to under 900yen.
The thing is though, there is a good reason why people don't make nigiri sushi at home, methinks. Several reasons pertains to this.
First of all, unlike sushi rice that sits in a bowl, nigiri-sushi actually has to take form. The consistency that lies in a small margin between "too hard and doesn't stick together" and "too sticky and soft and glues to fingers" which is difficult to achieve.
Adding to the difficulty, the flavor of the rice must be carefully calibrated between a mixture of rice-vinegar, sugar, and salt. This brew would also alter the composition of the rice, making it much more soggy than the innocent puddle of liquid would suggest. This ties back to the first point of rice-stickiness.
On top of that, I had lost my measuring cup for the rice cooker and was eyeballing just about everything. I lacked a proper tablespoon for measuring the sugar and vinegar as well, so it wasn't going to impede my efforts much.
The rice turned out to be in a state of matter that's somewhere between solid and liquid, called in the scientific field under the name of "wet glue." The rice sticks to just about everything, that includes hands, utincils, and the non-stick teflon coating of the rice-cooker.
Undaunted, vinegar and sugar and I have no idea how much salt went into the rice, and furious mixing began. The vinegar reacted with the hot rice and gave off a potent smell of sweaty feet.
After the mixing and tasting, it was decided that something was missing from one of the three main flavor-ingredients, although I had no idea what exactly that was. Adding some vinegar and then sugar, (further diluting the rice), I got to a point where it would evoke a distant memory of sushi (or at least my tongue was so numb to the repeated assults of sweet-sour-salty rice that I could have ate ice cream and it tastes like sushi-rice) and I was content that I could stop with the stirring.
The last step of the creating process was the most embarrasing of all. As the rice was too soft to be rolled (or, molded with fingers) into proper shapes, dabs of rice are put onto a plate, carefully arranged to look like a mound, and a piece of fish immediately laid over it. From the outside, it simply looks like amateur sushi attemp, but the truth is that due to the highly adhensive nature of this rice, it was more like a monument permanently attached to the plate itself - I could tilt the plate to 60 degrees and nothing would fall off (without the fish, I could do 180).
The final step of eating was actually reasonabbly enjoyable. The taste of the fish for the most part overcomes the strangely mixed rice, and it tasted fairly sushi-like. The one thing I did not count on was that oo-toro is kind of like large chunks of butter, and one can only chow down so much of it before the grease-ingesting-limit is reached. For me it was about the 6th or 7th piece from the 10-piece entree.
As a comparison, Tsukiji sushi restaurants generally have oo-toro for 500 yen per two pieces. While indeed sushi is as much about the beautiful presentation of food as the taste, no matter how ugly my nigiri was, closing my eyes while chewing was definitely worth the thousand yen difference (not counting train fare).
Price of gold? (Score:1)
Re:I guess that sashimi would have been too simple (Score:2)