Katsu learns Cooking: Sushi!
Ahhh.. weekend all done, and it’s time for back to work. Boss is MIA, which kinda sucks, ’cause we have a meeting in an hour with some clients and I kinda need him to be there, mostly ’cause I have no clue what the meeting is about, anyway.
So, instead, I update you, my adoring public, about my weekend shenanigans. And there were many shenanigans, of the wacky kind! Whoo!
…
… Actually, it rained a lot, and my internet and cable connection was gone for a good chunk of the weekend. Here’s a quick equation for you: Katsu - Internet = Trouble. I could have tried to surf using the KatsuPhone’s EDGE connection and Glitch, and I did, actually, at least to check my mail every hour or so, but I didn’t feel like trying to navigate the web for any real stretch of time on Glitch’s little screen. So, instead, I spent a good chunk of the weekend with my GBA Flash Cartridge and Mega Man Battle Network 4: Red Sun and Advance Wars 2, not to mention a nice long stretch of Tales of Symphonia on the ol’ GameCube.
I gotta tell ya, the SuxBox360 and the PlayStation 3 may be getting all the buzz, and the world may be moving on to the sexy little PSP and the wacky NDS (which I will be acquiring before X-mas, this I swear!), but most of my time this weekend was spent quite enjoyably with the GameCube and GBA SP. And when I look at the games I want to play right now.. They’re all on the Big N’s platform. I’m not becoming a Nintendo fanboy, but…
Anyway, in between all the console gaming, I got a serious sushi craving again. So I headed out in the pouring rain to the local sushi place, but it was closed for remodeling. Despondent, I went to the local supermarket, Amigo. Supermarket sushi may be nothing to write home about, but when you’ve got a serious sushi jones, it’s far better than nothing. So when I get there, the guy who actually makes the sushi was there, and, in an uncharacteristic move for a misanthrope like myself, I struck the guy up in conversation. He mentioned that they sold all the ingredients for sushi there, the rice, and the vinegar and wasabi and nori. Only thing they didn’t have was the fish. So I ask him about the fish, and I tell him that all I’ve got is some frozen salmon from Costco. And here’s the shocker: he tells me that that fish is fine! Sure, I can hear the sushi snobs out there gnashing their teeth at this blasphemy, but the way the guy tells it, if the fish was frozen as fresh as possible, it’ll be fine. And for the germophobes out there who refuse to eat sushi because “Oh, ewww, it’s raw fish“, apparently the freezing process kills any germs or parasites the fish may have had, so it’s perfectly safe (once the Net came back on, I got online and verified it: it’s true!). So, I look at all the ingredients they sell there, and I can get everything for less than $10!
I think you can guess the rest of this story now. For my first time making sushi, it actually came out pretty well, IMHO. It took me a while to figure out how to slice the fish properly (I can see why real sushi chefs train for years to do it right), and I definitely need a sharper knife for cutting it, but after a couple of false starts, I was slicing some passable bits of sashimi. My home-mixed wasabi looked weird, but tasted appropriately spicy. The big surprise was the rice: people who know about sushi will tell you that the word ’sushi’ doesn’t mean ‘raw fish’, it actually stands for the rice. And now I know why. The rice is really what makes sushi.. Well.. Sushi!
It’s a special short-grain rice that you prepare so it’s extra sticky, and then you season with sushi vinegar, which is not the same thing as regular vinegar: it’s sweeter than regular vinegar, and a bit saltier as well. You mix the rice and vinegar and fan the whole thing while mixing so the rice cools down to room temperature, and it ends up being a little shiny and very sticky. It’s tricky to get it right, but when you do, it’s *delicious*! Although you learn real quick, when preparing the little rice beds for the sushi, that you had better wet your fingers with water before shaping the rice beds, unless you really want the rice to just stick to your fingers for ever and ever.
Finally, at the end of the night, I had managed to prepare quite a few bits of passable homemade sushi, and in between eating those and all the spare bits of rice I’d licked off my fingers and the mangled bits of sashimi from when I was trying to figure out how to slice the salmon right, I was *stuffed*. And seeing as it’s now the day after, and I’m still alive and not locked in the bathroom with serious gastrointestinal distress, I’d say the experiment was a success.. Just don’t bring up how I clogged the kitchen sink with ultra-sticky rice and had to go buy like 3 bottles of Liquid Plumr to unclog it…
And, hey, I had a lot of the rice left over.. (Note for the future: when preparing sushi for myself, do not prepare 4 CUPS of rice).. I can just eat that stuff up by itself. Sushi rice = t3h r0xx0rz. 
So, now I know how to make sushi, at least in the most basic sense. Next time I’ll try my hand at making some rolls.. Ought to be fun. 
September 13th, 2005 at 2:28 pm
I’ve had a few nights of sushi making fun myself. Over here at my house making sushi becomes an event, we invite a whole bunch of people over and everyone is required to prepare at least one roll. We have several rolling mats so we get three or four people making rolls at the same time and before you know it there is a feast to be had. Big note, no matter how fresh the fish, make sure it gets frozen! Also if you are not sure as to the freeze date on the salmon, smoke it. Smoked salmon makes great sushi, especially with cream cheese. Yellow fined tuna is my favorite for the raw stuff, just ask the butcher if it’s sushi fresh, they’ll know. Aside from smoked salmon, another safe meat to use for all the rawphobics out there is immitation crab meat, it comes precooked, tastes great, and looks really pretty in rolls.
September 13th, 2005 at 3:22 pm
Yeah, I can hardly wait to make it again, although I have a feeling that, for now, I will be making sushi just for myself. Most of my friends don’t care for sushi, and in the house, while Natalie lkes sushi, my mother in law just kept making ‘ugh’ faces all night while I made it. What really pissed me off was this: I made sure that the salmon never touched anything other than the cutting board, my fingers, the knife, and the serving plate. Not for the sake of the counter, but for my own sake: I’m not going to be eating fish that’s been just laying there right on the counter. Nevertheless, the mother in law spent a good chunk of the ngiht hovering around and repeating ‘Make sure to wipe down and disinfect the counter when you’re done!’, as if it was the first time that I had ever worked with anything raw in the kitchen. You know, I work with raw *beef* and raw *chicken* in that kitchen on a nearly nightly basis, both of which are deifnetly germy and unsafe to eat raw, and she’s never said a word. But spend one evening doing sushi with raw frozen saltwater salmon, which is so clean and parasite-free thanks to the freezing that it’s perfectly safe to eat raw like that, and she goes into conniptions about making sure everything’s disinfected afterwards.
And even then, after explaining how safe the fish was, *why* it was safe, and still going the extra mile and wiping down the counter carefully with Lysol (which is sold as a *germ killer and disinfectant*) and making sure she saw me do that, later than night when I dropped by the kitchen to get something to drink, the whole thing smelled of Clorox. She had used fucking *Clorox* on the counters. WTF?!?!
Makes absolutely no sense. I deal with raw meats every single day on that counter. Especially chicken, which is so full of germs when raw that it should be classified as a WMD. But it’s the perfectly clean and safe salmon that sets her off (oh, and I’ve made salmon plenty of times before on that same counter, just that I usually broil or fry it afterwards. Jeebus..).
As for Natalie, she has decided that she doesn’t trust home-made salmon. Nevermind that I’ve explained how and why it’s safe, that I showed her how I made it, that I explained that the salmon used in sushi restaurants and supermarket sushi bars has usually been sitting there out in the open for far longer than my salmon ever did, but she still eats that stuff happily.. she still doesn’t trust it.
I live with irrational people. Oh well.. More sushi for me!
September 13th, 2005 at 11:28 pm
Human beings have co-existed with germs since time immemorial, and we live in an era of such advanced scientific (i.e. medical) prowess so as to seem unparalelled when compared to the rest of our bloody species history.
If our ancestors thrived on the feces-licious mountain streams of old, surely we can expect a lil’ 21st-Century medical back-up in case the frozen fish gives us the runs.
More sushi for you, Katsu.
As for myself, I’m not keen on sushi, but it has absolutely fuck-all to do with the rawness… I just haven’t tasted any that’s rocked my world.
Maybe you can take that as a challenge.
September 14th, 2005 at 5:00 pm
While Isa and I were in Brooklyn, there was a sushi place about two blocks away from where we were staying. What we didn’t know was that if you just payed $19.95 it was all-you-can-eat. We ended up there by accident on a Sunday morning, escaping the sleeping gay men in the apartment and I ended up eating 20+ rolls of sushi.
Invite me over the next time you make sushi.
September 19th, 2005 at 4:05 pm
All On The Big N
The Nintendo Gamecube still has a great selection of games….