Finally getting it close (sushi)

[Brian]

After many failures and enough polite guests who no longer ask me to make sushi, I finally seem to have gotten close.



My wife actually asked for seconds, prior to that the best compliment I had recieved was 'well, you cut them very nicely'.

[djwong]

That's one beautiful piece of salmon. Did you cut it from a whole fish or fillet? I am lucky that there are two japanese markets close by. We often buy a prepared piece of salmon and slice it into sashimi pieces. We go out to a local restaurant for sushi.

[dmccurtis]

That looks absolutely lovely. Did you pickle the gari yourself?

[Brian]

Thanks fellas. I bought a fillet, whole foods has sushi grade salmon/tuna fillet which is deep frozen. I've tried ordering from a few places and having it overnighted in cold storage (east coast....) but the quantity required feeds an army. These fillets seem the most reliable option at the moment.
I had one shipment sent last year and made sashimi, it fed 15 people and we had half left over, haha.

I bought the gari as well.

The rice has been the most difficult part of getting this sushi right, not only cooking it and adding the right amount of rice vinegar but proportioning and timing for when it is served. I have a cedar edo bitsu and that helped tremendously.

It's no surprise that it takes sushi chefs so long to get master the rice.

[dmccurtis]

The availability of good fish has been the biggest issue I've had with making sushi as well. The quality is available, but I can't make or eat enough sushi or sashimi to make it economical to order whole fish, or even sides. I've mostly stuck to smaller fish for that reason: mackerel, snapper, etc. The rice is hard too, but it's a technique issue. Practice enough and you'll get it right. It only takes sushi chefs five to ten years.

[Brian]

I think it takes 5 or 10 years before the head chef will trust a newbie with his rice recipe.

Add to all of these complications a good source for wasabi root.

[Chris Hall]

The illusion is, sorry to say, that you're getting 'close', when in fact the goal tends to move further away as you delve deeper and 'close' becomes, well, 'not so much'. That's been my experience at least.

Looks tasty all the same. I stick to maki-zushi, as that's my pay grade, and I would be fearful of serving it to a Japanese national. I do at least know what good sushi tastes like. It's very hard to find in Western MA - well, I mean impossible, actually.

Two of my pet peeves, if I might be so bold to share:

-Grocery stores offering ready made sushi and hiring an 'asian looking' person to be behind the counter who, 99 times out of 100, has no idea how to make real Japanese food (and neither does his employer)
-that most of the sushi restaurants in the US are run by Koreans or Chinese, who don't care so much about the details of Japanese food (just want the higher costs they can charge), and most Americans are too ignorant to know the difference anyway. If an American went into an Italian restaurant and all the staff were speaking French, and really making Italian food from a French perspective, I fear they still wouldn't know - or care

[dmccurtis]

We're all chasing vanishing horizons, aren't we? Probably for the best. Who of us would know what to do once we got there?

[Chris Hall]

We're all chasing vanishing horizons, aren't we? Probably for the best. Who of us would know what to do once we got there?

I'm afraid - and this could be an old man's crochety-ness - that many out there seem to not chase any horizons at all, but want it all, right now.

I tend to think that there is no catch up to those horizons ever. And that's okay.

[Brian]

I know that sentiment well, it seems just as true in sushi as it does woodworking the closer I get to something the further away I feel. I chase the horizon, it's just how I'm built.

It's also fun to employ sharp objects and wooden containers in a newly productive manner (to me).

I'm spoiled being near NYC, and actually have two insanely good places in NJ. Next time you come through NJ you have to make a reservation at Fuji in Haddonfeild. They allow you to bring whisky too (the one near me gets really......really angry if you bring anything other than wine, hehe).