Wednesday, May 27, 1992 - North Shore News - 58

Sushi preparation is simple

THE FRUGAL GOURMET

IN THE last few years in
this country sushi has
become very ‘“‘in.”’

The principle is simple, attrac-
tive and clever — very Japanese.
Warm rice mixed with vinegar and
sugar is rolled in, around or with
an endless number of possible in-
gredients. The results can be
esthetically beautiful or just
basically delicious.

Sushi can be very high-class or
simple peasant food. In any case,
you should fearn to make it.

All the ingredients can be found
in Japanese or Korean markets.

SHARI RICE
(Makes 6 cups)

Really fine sushi is no better
than the shari rice, a rice cooked
just for this dish. The recipe looks
complicated, but you wil! soon
learn it is very simple.

3 cups skort-grain Japanese rice or
_ peart rice

1 small bundie dried rolled kelp

(‘konbu’’)

SEASONING

V5 cup rice-wine vinegar

1% tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon sali

Rinse the rice and place it in a
colander to drain. Place the rice in
a heavy covered saucepan and
allow it to sit for a half hour in
the pot.

Add 34% cups water and the
kelp roll. Place the pan on high
heat and, when the rice begins to
boil, remove the kelp pieces and
discard it.

Boil for 2 minutes, lid off.
Reduce the heat to low, cover and
cook for 15 mirutes.

Flat cakes can sure deflate

inquisitive
Gook

SUE
WILSON

ANNE
GARDINER

Remove from the heat and let
the rice cool for 10 minutes, lid
on.

In the meantime, heat the rice
vinegar, sugar and salt just until
everything dissolves. Aliow to
cool, —

Place the rice in a large pan.
Pour on the seasoning liquid and
stir with a wooden spoon, fanning
all the time. (1 use an electric fan
so I do not require help. Other-
wise, use a handheld fan, stirring
and fanning at the same time for
about 3 minutes.)

The rice is now complete. Keep
it in the pan under a moist towel
as you use it.

ROLLED SUSHI
(“‘maki-zushi’’)

These are the most beautiful lit-

tle rolis, and they’re easy to make.

FIRST CAME the letter
from a frustrated reader
asking why a cake, which
has risen while baking, col-
lapses when it’s removed
from the oven.

Then, one of our own cakes fel!
with a thud as it cooled. And we
felt truly compeiied to address the
question.

The most common reason cakes
fall is underbaking. As leavening
gases are released in the oven, the
batter rises.

ideally, proteins in) eggs and
fleur coagulate just as the cake
reaches its maximum height, set-
ting the high, light structure.

if the batter hasn't quite firmed
when i's removed from the oven,
it collapses. Leavening gases make
a hasty exit and cells are fattened
to a fraction of their intended
size.

WHAT

IS sushi?.. warm

rice mixed with vinegar
and sugar rolled in or with
any number of ingredients.
You can make it as simple
snacking fare or dress it
up for fancy eating.

NEWS photo Mike Wakefield

The most common maki-zushi are
made with sheets of seaweed
(‘nori’’) that have been toasted
and cut to the perfect size for the
dish. You can find them in any
Japanese market.

To toast seaweed, pass the shiny
side over a gas flame for | or 2
seconds until crisp.

Choose any ingredient for the
cemre of the roll. Using a smail
bamboo sushi mat, place a sheet
of toasted seaweed on the mat,
the shiny side of the seaweed
down.

Spread out about % cup of
shari rice in the middle of the
nori, making a rectangle of rice
that goes from one side of the
seaweed ic the other, about 3 in-
ches wide.

Place your chosen filling in the

It may be you've simply remov-
ed the cake from the oven ioo
soon. Insert a cake tester of
toothpick into the middle of the
cake to ensure no uncooked batter
clings.

tf vour cakes fall consistently,
your oven temperature may be set
too low, or the thermostat inside
the oven may need adjusting by a
service company. At too low a
baking temperature, air bubbles
throughout the cake expand to
their maximum, then pop like
balloons because there's no sup-
porting structure.

The ideal baking temperature
for most cakes is 350°F (180°C).
If you stéspect your oven is inac-
curate, run a check with an oven
thermometer (you can ourchase
them aia hardware store).

If your recipe coniains egg
whites, beat them just until soft

<aks form. Overbeaten whites
look dry and have lost the elastici-

centre and roll up the seaweed
over the rice, pulling the bamboo
mat back a bit and moving it off
as you go. Your first one may
look a bit crude, but you'll catch
on in no time.

Cut each roll into 6 pieces. You
might cut them on an angle to
change the appearance of your
sushi display.

NOTE: Have a littie water and
vinegar on the side. Always wet
your hancs in this mixture when
you hanct. the rice; it prevents
sticking.

CUCUMBER FILLING

Cut stich: of unpeeled cucum-
ber “-inch tnick, just the length
of «he nori, about 8 inches. Place
the cucumber in the centre of the
shari rice and rol! and cut.

TUNA FILLING

Cut sticks of very fresh tuna
Just like the cucumber and prepare
in same manner.

EGG FILLING

Prepare the fatlowing mixture:
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon sugar
V2 teaspoon salt
5 eggs, well beaten

Mix the water with the corn-
starch and add the remaining in-
gredients. Heat a square non-stick
griddle pan, about 10 inches by 10
inches.

Add one-half of the egg mix-
ture at a time and cook over me-
dium heat just until the egg sets
and begins to dry a bit.

Remove from the pan and cut
into long strips about '%2-inch
wide. Place in the middle of the
sushi roll and complete as above.
FISH CAKE FILLING |

Purchase a colored steamed fish
cake (‘‘kamaboko’’) at your Jap-
anese market, cut it into long %-
inch strips and prepare like the
cucumber filling above.
MUSHROOM (shiitake) or
GOURD SHAVINGS

(‘kampyo’’) FILLINGS

2 ounces dried shiitake
mushrooms or 1 ounce dried
kampyo (Japauese gourd shavings)
SAUCE

2 cups ‘‘dashi’’ stock (made from
dried seaweed or dried tuna shav-
ings)

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon ‘‘mirin’’ (sweet rice
vinegar)

2 tablespoons sugar

Soak the dried shiitake
mushrooms in warm water for |
hour. Drain the mushrooms.

Blend all the ingredients for the
sauce and simmer the mushrooms
over low heat, uncovered, for
about 1} hour, The sauce will
greatly reduce. Allow to cool,
then slice the mushrooms initio
sticks for sushi.

Roll into sushi as above.

SUSHI BALLS IN SESAME

Roll the shari rice into balls the
size of a small golf ball. Roll in.
sulted ground sesame seeds and
chill before serving. You can use a
bit of black sesame for garnish.
The sushi balls are delicious.

SUSHI WITH FISH
(‘nigiri-zushi’")

This is my favorite. A thin slice
of fish is served over a small
hand-formed bit of rice.

No, you should not be upset
over the fact that many of these
fish slices are served raw. Simply
find very fresh fish — and if
you're nervous about some kind
of fish parasite, just freeze the
Slices for 24 hours before using.
Defrost and enjoy.

To prepare this dish, make a
batch of shari rice. Gather about
2 tablespoons of shari in one hand
and squeeze it gently into an
oblong shape, like a fat sausage.

Pick up a small slice of fish, cut
to about the size of the bit of rice,
and place a small dab of
‘‘wasabi’’ (Japanese green
horseradish powder) on the fish,

Place the fish on the rice in an
attractive manner with the wasabi
between the fish and the rice, and
arrange cn a tray.

Any of the following may be
used with fine results:

Raw tuna, very thinly sliced;

Prawns, steamed and butterflied,
or sliced;

Squid, fresh or raw;

Octopus, cooked and thinly sliced;

Raw flounder, very thinly sliced;

Broiled fish or eel;

Raw sea bass, very thinly sliced;

the baker’s ego!

ty they need to stretch as gases
expand, resulting in a cake that’s
low in volume. :

Even an overgreased pan can ce
the slippery culprit — too slick for
the batter to climb. Grease ihe
sides of cake pans sparingly, then
sprinkle with flour to help the
batter cling. For angel and chiffon
cakes, don’t grease the pan at all;
the batter needs support from the
sides of the pan as well as the
tube as it rises.

Do your kids like to peek, then
bang the oven door? Gr did you
move the cake part way through
baking? A cold wave of air or
sudden jarring collapses a cake
like a small earthquake.

Hf all else fails, bla.2 the reci-
pe. Remember, noi all recipes are
well designed. Too much baking
powder or baking soda means tiny
bubbies of carbon dioxide become
overinflated and pop.

On the other hand, too little

leavening, or baking powder that’s
old, also leaves « cake dense and
compact.

Too much sugar or fat, both
tenderizers, also weakens the
structure. Don’t hesitate to
discard a recipe that’s a failure.

Occasionally, cakes such as gin-
gerbread sink in the middle. These
aie usually leavened with baking
soda, an alkali. If there isn’t suf-
ficient acid in the tecipe to
balance the soda, a cake sets more
slowly in the oven.

As the middle of the cake cooks
last, it’s the mosi vuinerable io
collanse. And since acidity varies,
for instance with sour milk, these
cakes can easily be heavy and
moist in the middle.

And our failure? Tne oven
thermostat needed adjusting. Flat
cakes deflate egos. But there's
some comfort in knowing that this
time it was the fauit of the oven,
not the cook.