15/04/2024
Monday … Start of a great week … One of the wonderful things about sushi is, you don’t need to know the names of every item to be able to enjoy it.
And in Japan, at least, the most popular type of sushi is called nigiri- A type of sushi where the rice is molded by hand and the fish or other topping pressed by hand atop the rice. And it’s the stickiness of the rice, combined with the moisture from the topping, that helps to adhere the strip of raw fish to the mound of rice underneath.
Occasionally the chef will place a small amount of wasabi between the rice and the fish, and some type of garnish, such as minced scallions or ginger, atop the fish, is also common.
And the fish is almost always raw. Typical examples include tuna, salmon, yellowtail, and Halibut. Fatty tuna, which comes from the belly section of bluefin tuna, is another popular topping.
A couple of notable exceptions to the “almost always raw” statement include shrimp nigiri, which features shrimp that has been boiled and butterflied, and eel nigiri, which consists of a mound of sushi rice with a strip of grilled eel on top.
Whether cooked or raw, the fish and seafood for nigiri, and indeed for all sushi, must be exceedingly fresh and handled with great care.
Although sushi restaurants do offer chopsticks, the preferred method for eating sushi is to pick it up with your fingers and eat each piece in a single bite. Sushi etiquette is another extensive topic that we can’t fully explore here…
