HOW NOT TO MAKE SUSHI

Anyone who has visited this site knows that I dabble in world cuisine and sometimes even experiment with cooking.  For example, the Huffington Post published my effort at roasting a turkey.

I yesterday saw the movie, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, which compelled me to drive to Marukai to purchase the ingredients to make sushi.  Mind you, as in my turkey experience, I have never attempted to make sushi in my life.  Well, unlike that Thanksgiving success, things did not turn out perfectly this time.

First, this was the longest 82 minute film I've enjoyed.  While sometimes plodding, with a great soundtrack, it is a documentary of the best sushi restaurant--Ginza's Sukiyabashi Jiro--in the world, operated by 86 year old Jiro Ono, who started at the age of nine, and today with only ten seats and no restroom, has earned 3 Michelin stars.  He has one price, $368, for which you get 20 choreographed pieces of sushi:

- Hirame　(ひらめ)

- Sumi-ika　(すみいか)

- Shima-aji　(しまあじ)

- Akami　(あかみ)

- Chu-toro　(ちゅうとろ)

- Oo-toro　(おおとろ)

- Kohada　(こはだ)

- Hamaguri　(はまぐり)

- Aji　(あじ)

- Kuruma-ebi　(くるまえび)

- Sayori　(さより)

- Tako　(たこ)

- Saba　(さば)

- Akagai　(あかがい)

- Uni　(うに)

- Kobashira　(こばしら)

- kura　(いくら)

- Anago　(あなご)

- Tamago　(たまご)

Drinks are extra.  You pretty much need to make reservations a year in advance, but as I'm staying at the Hotel Seiyo Ginza in a couple of weeks, hmm...maybe I'll check it out.  Or, perhaps, the shop run by his younger son in Roppongi, which is the mirror image of the original (father is left handed, son is right handed), which, with "only" two stars, should be similar.

Jiro represents purity and perfection, driven by will and psychotic repetition.  My problem is that I had to compromise on quality and did not know what I was doing.  It takes ten years for an apprentice to be entrusted to make sushi at Jiro's.

Perhaps the rice is the most important part of the recipe.  I used only the #2 rice from Japan, an Akita Iwate Hitomebore.  I must have run out of the #1 Niigata from Japan.  I bought these two bags for something around $7/pound from Mitsukoshi, across the street from the Tokyo Westin.  A pound of California rice can be purchased for less than $1 in Hawaii.  I decided not to use a rice cooker, but instead, adventurously steamed the pot over an open flame on my roof.  Well, it boiled too quickly and, it turned out, I undercooked it.  But, I thought, okay, for risotto in Italy is always al dente, and spaghetti in Florence is almost crispy in the middle.  But, then, I remembered when working the sugar industry of incidents where Filipino laborers died from eating undercooked rice.  Something to do with expansion of the grains in their stomach.  So, I was wary.

At Marukai I splurged a bit, picking the fattiest chu-toro (bottom right):

Note the $38/pound.  Then, I economized by choosing the cheapest junmai daiginjo sake on sale (or so I thought):

The Kamikokoro Ohshima Shuichi sake from Okayama, 16% ethanol, at $40, was the most expensive sake I've ever purchased, for the bottle was only half a liter.  I now see why it was cheaper, because the bottle size is deceptively standard.  It was also too sweet.  So much for sake and rice in this meal.

I went to Google to find out how much rice vinegar and sugar to add to the rice, and used much less because, frankly, I don't like vinegared rice.  I went overboard, though, on two other items:

  -  I bought a tray of real wasabi for $7.  You can get two large tubes for that price, which could last a whole year.  Then, I couldn't find the grater, so only cut the roots into tiny pieces.  There was no hotness at all to this wasabi.  I've asked people in Japan if they preferred one or the other, and unanimously, they all use the manufactured version.  While this is not real wasabi (they are almost always some chemical composite not even involving the plant), it is really hot, cheap and convenient.  It took me at least ten minutes to scrape off the skin and cut the roots.  Well, I'm now up to strike three and the eating has not even started.

-  Then, I took a chance on ikura (salted salmon eggs).  For the past three months I have been closely checking my blood pressure and have been assiduous about minimizing my sodium intake.  Ikura is mostly salt.

So here is my sushi extravagance with sake and Kirin beer:

I spent so much for the blue-fin tuna that I had a side order of sashimi, and more sodium.  Those green specks with the red salmon egg are the pieces of wasabi root.  The rice grains did not hold together well, and it was a struggle to get anything into my mouth.  Note that there are no utensils.  I used my fingers, which is the way they eat sushi in Japan.  Strike four.

Have you noticed there are no females making and serving sushi at a bar?  That is a Japanese tradition, although an all-female sushi restaurant last year opened in Akihabara, the electronics center of the country.

The good news is that after that sodium-infused meal, my blood pressure did not rise that night, and was measured to be 115/68 this morning.  I wonder if all that alcohol neutralized the salt?  Maybe I can have more salt in my diet if I maintain a high imibibition rate.  And I did enjoy a beautiful sunset with my meal:

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