The Perfect Sticky Sushi Rice...:)
This is for hoobley...and all the other people out there game enough to try your own sushi! :) This is for handrolls and yields - 4 large rolls [futomaki] or 10 small rolls [hosomaki])
Enjoy!
*Measure all the ingredients carefully - "about that" will mess you up every time with this one!
*Choose your rice carefully...you want a SHORT grain rice, youshould be able to get specific "Sushi" Rice at the supermarket these days...you can also use Arborio rice.
*Use a heavy gauge pan with a tight fitting lid or rice cooker.
1. Tezu
First step is to prepare the tezu (vinegar-water solution).
Mix together 250 ml of water, 30 ml of rice vinegar and 5 ml of salt.
2. Ingredients
500 ml Sushi Rice
600 ml Water
60 ml Rice Vinegar
30 ml Sugar
5 ml Salt
3. Wash the rice under cold water until the water runs clear.
4. cook the rice...
Rice cookers: Turn on, heat up and wait to finish cooking
Stove top: Bring rice to boil and cover tightly, simmer at lowest possible heat for 18mins. Remove from stove, stand 15 mins. DO NOT UNCOVER IT - at all!! for ever and ever! lol
5. Vinegar prep
in a small pan bring the vinegar, salt and sugar together until the sugar dissolves, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, allow to cool to room temperature.
Use a wooden spatula/spoon to cut and fold the rice. You want to rice to remain whole, so do this carefully so you dont end up "mashing" it.
6. when you mix the rice you want to preferrably use a wooden bowl....The wood will absorb the excess moisture and allow the rice to remain sticky without going glugy. you can buy deicated sushi rice bowls if you are really keen ;) Otherwise you want a wide based (this allows the rice to cool evenly and quickly) wooden bowl.
Moisten the bowl with some of the tezu using a cloth, then add the hot rice and about 1/4 of the vinegar...fold the vinegar into the rice carefully...and continue until all the vinegar mix is used.
7. Now this part is very technical...lol...In an ideal world, you want to fan the rice...to do this you use a small fan lol. This is not really essential, but the idea behind it is scientific - the moisture will evaporate from the rice, leaving it with a glossy finish, an important technical aspect to the sushi rice.
Now you have perfect sushi rice ready to roll!!
Now I know that all seems terribly like wtf can be bothered, but as I said this is the recipe my sushi chef gave us - the technical version. The essential elements to making sure you rice sticky and tasty are making sure you cook the rice properly, the right type of rice is used and that the rice is not crushed when you are folding the vinegar in.
Aside from that the rest is asthetics really.
Hope I havent bored you all, but there you go! :)
