Japanese: Omakase Sushi Feast (Chef’s Choice)

Recipe by Paul Young <info@cooking-with-paul.com>

(serves 1 or more)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup soy sauce; plus more for serving
• ¼ cup mirin (sweet rice wine)
• 3 cups cooked sushi rice (see recipe)
• Sushi grade raw seafood (salmon, salmon roe, cryo-frozen tuna steak, etc)
• Cooked seafood (sliced octopus, butterflied shrimp*, etc)
• Vegetables (cucumbers, avocados, matchbook carrots, etc)
• Tamago (Japanese rolled omelet) (see recipe)
• Nori (toasted seaweed sheets)
• Garnish (pickled ginger, wasabi, shiso or mint leaves, seaweed salad, shredded daikon, sesame seeds, chopped chives, etc)
• Warm water (in a medium-sized bowl for wetting your hands)

Tips:

• Rectangular serving plates allow the best aesthetic presentation of sushi
• When arranging the elements on the platter, place contrasting colors next to each other
• Look for opportunities to group or cluster your elements
• Try working with angles, but align your elements as if they are laying on a grid
• Do not crowd the platter; less is more; interesting “margin” space will work in your favor
• Always garnish your platter with pickled ginger and wasabi; make use of veggies for garnish whenever possible (shiso or mint leaves, seaweed salad, shredded daikon, etc)
• Always serve sushi with soy sauce in a separate dipping dish

Procedure:

1. Make the nikiri shoyu (sushi basting sauce): in a saucepan, combine 1 cup of soy sauce and ¼ cup of mirin; bring sauce to a boil, then lower the heat and let simmer for 10 minutes to reduce the volume to about half
2. Making maguro nigiri (raw tuna): start by wetting your hands in warm water
3. Add about 2-3 tablespoons of cooked sushi rice to the palm of your dominant hand and squeeze to form a ball, re-shape the ball into a log; set aside
4. Place a slice of tuna in palm of your other hand, add a small amount of wasabi (if desired)
5. Place rice ball on top of tuna; squeeze and re-shape the rice log to conform to the shape of the fish (use your dominant hand’s fingers to help)
6. Turn the finished nigiri over and place on serving plate
7. Lightly brush top of tuna with basting sauce (optional)
8. Garnish with chopped chives (optional)
9. Replace tuna with salmon, tamago, cooked shrimp, salmon roe, etc (see reference picture); also see video
10. Optional: when making tako (cooked octopus) or tamago (omelet), wrap each nigiri with a thin strip of nori
11. Optional: add overlapping fish slices without rice (“sashimi”)
12. Optional: in a separate bowl, add rice; then make an arrangement of toppings and serve as “chirashi”

*Note: when cooking raw shrimp for sushi, skewer the shrimp with a bamboo skewer before boiling; remove the skewer before using for nigiri sushi