How to Make Sushi Rice at Home
1. Intro
You can make sushi rice at home, without having to go somewhere to get it. It’s actually really easy and you don’t even need any special equipment (except of course the rice). The secret is in the way you cook the rice.
2. What is Sushi Rice?
Sushi is often made by Japanese people, who have a very specific method of preparing it. This guide will teach you how to make sushi rice.
The first step is to soak the rice in water for as long as it takes to fill your cup with water (about 5 minutes). This is important: it makes the rice much more pliable and lets you mix the ingredients together without breaking the "glue" that holds the rice together.
If you've never made sushi before, I strongly recommend starting with a simple recipe using plain rice that comes from a grocery store or something similar (e.g., white rice). We do not want your sushi tasting like store-bought Udon noodles!
After soaking, drain off all but about 2/3 of the water and rinse the rice under cold running water until no trace of grainy slime remains (about 30 seconds). If there's still some slime on your grains, strain off any remaining water and repeat this step again.
You should now have a perfectly clean and shiny group of grains. After draining off all but about 2/3 of the water they should be dry but still moist enough to hold together when squeezed between your fingers (not wet but not dry).
Now that they're ready for cooking, rinse them again in cold running water until no trace of slime remains (about 30 seconds) and drain them once more. Then drain off all but about 2/3 of the water and rinse them again under cold running water until no trace of slime remains (about 30 seconds). Again, drain off any remaining moisture, then repeat this process over again until no trace of slime remains on your grains after repeated rinses under cold running water (each time draining out just about 1/4".)
Finally, drain off all but about 1/2 inch of rice "glue" left in between each grain by squeezing it between your fingers as if you were going to make some sort of souffle dough. This will allow you to mix everything more easily when cooking at high temperatures so they don't stick together while cooking. The final product will be ready to be used right away or stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days: it's ideal if you can refrigerate it so that doesn't become moldy after 4 days or so at room temperature; then you can keep it fresh for another week or two by storing only what is needed each day by refrigerating it overnight after washing up
3. Homemade Sushi or Takeout?
The Japanese love sushi, and what better way to get that than to make it yourself? Many people might start out making sushi in a restaurant, but once they learn how to cook with the correct ingredients, they can make their own version at home.
While it’s not a bad idea to go out and get takeout if you can’t be bothered with your own homemade ingredients, there are many things you can do at home that won’t cost much or take a lot of time (and have a big impact on your diet). Here’s a list of things you can make at home:
• Sushi rice: 1 cup white rice (ideally non-gluten), 1/2 cup warm water, 1 teaspoon sugar (optional), 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Grilled sashimi: 2 tuna steaks (ideally cooked completely through), 2 raw salmon steaks (ideally cooked completely through), 2 raw yellowtail steaks (ideally cooked through), 2 raw scallops (ideally cooked through)
• Soft-shell crab: 1 large crab meat
• Tuna: 3 ounces fresh tuna meat
• Salmon: 4 ounces fresh salmon meat
• Tofu: 2 tablespoons tofu liquid, 1 tablespoon tamari sauce, 1 teaspoon sugar, and 2 teaspoons soy sauce
Try these recipes out! They are pretty easy to follow as long as you chop everything up beforehand and prepare the ingredients ahead of time. You may want to add an egg if you don't have enough room. The easiest way is to slice each ingredient into thin strips first so that it's easier for the food processor or food processor blade to cut them into smaller pieces during further processing. Every recipe includes nutritional information for each ingredient and a brief description of how each ingredient is best prepared.
4. Ingredients for the Perfect Sushi Rice
It’s not exactly a secret that sushi rice needs to be perfectly cooked — otherwise, it becomes mushy and tasteless. However, there are a few things you should know about sushi rice to make the most out of it.
First, the Japanese term for sushi rice is “nigiri-zushi” (or “pinchable sushi”). This simply means that you need to use a small amount of rice to prepare a sushi roll, so they are called “nigiri-zushi” instead of “nigiri-maki.” The number of pieces per roll varies depending on what you are making — typically 6 pieces unless you are making something called a “roll maki.”
Second, nigiri-zushi has to be prepared by hand. If you have a food processor or other machine, it will work fine, but for the machine to have any effect on the cooking process, you need your hands to work with it and move it around. No one else needs to do this — just set your food processor or another machine aside and enjoy watching at least 2 hours of worry-free cooking!
Third, nigiri-zushi is meant to be eaten as soon as possible after preparation (preferably within an hour). It should not be kept in the refrigerator or freezer since it will lose its flavor by then (and if leftover longer, all its nutrients will also disappear). Once you open your Nigiri-Zushi packet or put your knife into it though, eating it is really easy: just break off one piece with your chopsticks and eat it!
5. How to Make Sushi Rice
You can make sushi rice at home (and it's really simple!)
Here are the steps: 1. Wash your rice. 2. Bring your rice to a boil in a pot with water, then cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until you have a little more sauce than you want on top of your sushi. 3. Drain, rinse and repeat! 4. Finally, add some sea salt to the rice and place it back in the pot (to absorb the flavor). 5. Let it cool for 20-30 minutes before serving! Now go make some sushi!
6. Serving Sushi Rice
Eating sushi is a fun, sensual experience. There's nothing more delicious than a few dozen pieces of fresh raw fish and I’ve never had an aversion to raw fish in general, but the thought of preparing sushi rice from scratch is a very different matter. The process isn't as simple as it seems.
I have been doing this at home for almost three years now and I am happy to share my recipes for making sushi rice with you. My inspiration for the recipes came from the many blogs I follow — and I must admit that these are some of my favorite recipes!
The first thing you need is really good quality rice. The second is the right amount of sea salt; you wouldn't want to be using too much salt because it will make your sushi taste bland, but too little will cause your sushi to be soggy. You should also make sure to purchase freshly grated or flaked sea salt because otherwise, it will clump together if left sitting around in your kitchen.
If you don’t have gari (dried seaweed) or nori (seaweed sheets) on hand, you can use any type of dried seaweed such as konbu (kelp), dulse, or kombu (kelp sheets).
Here are some recipes for making sushi rice:
Sushi Rice with Dulse
Sushi Rice with Nori
Sushi Rice with Gari
Sushi Rice with Dulse & Gari
Sushi Rice with Sesame Seeds & Nori
7. Conclusion
The world of sushi is just one of many that are ripe for disruption. We see a few examples where the market has been disrupted by the introduction of new, better alternatives — Uber, for example. But we also see a whole bunch of products where the market has been fundamentally transformed by the introduction and refinement of new technologies:
The introduction of refrigeration (invented in Japan); The invention of microwave ovens (invented in China); The invention of IR remote controls (invented in America); The invention and refinement of digital imaging (for example, digital cameras)
These innovations have fundamentally changed how we interact with technology, and they have made it far easier to reach previously inaccessible markets. And they have allowed us to create products that could never be created before.
It’s clear that dozens more companies are working on similar ideas and I believe that by understanding how all these things happened it will be possible to create new products that are even better than what we currently have. In this post, I want to talk about some examples where this was done successfully — for example, what it takes to make sushi rice at home.
I hope you'll find these posts useful when you're planning your own product or startup!
