Sushi Rice.

Now this you would think is easy to make but it does take a little time and practice.  what you are looking for is a rice that has a sweet sour note but not over powering .  And that you can form in a ball or roll in dried sea weed. Like most things in Japanese cooking it is simple and at the same time if you want to get it right take time and practice. Also you will need a pan with a tight fitting lid , you do not want any of the steam to escape.

You will need

150g/5½oz sushi rice, rinsed thoroughly and drained

225ml/8fl oz water

pinch salt

25g/1oz sugar

50ml/2fl oz rice wine vinegar

1 tbsp dashi- concentrated or powdered fish stock

Now if you can not get sushi rice from most good supermarkets but if you can not get hold of any then use a short grain white rice.

The first thing that you have to do is rinse the rice. Put the rice in to cold water and and stir it round with your hand . Then drain the cold water off and scrunch the rice with your hand, then add some more cold water to the rice.  You should keep doing this until the water is clear, it takes about 2 to 4 goes to get to this stage. Now take your rice and put it in a saucepan with the water that you need to cook it in 225ml/8fl oz and let it soak for about 30 minutes.  As it, soaks the rice should appear to go whiter and the water remain clear.

Take the sugar, salt ,rice vinegar and dashi, heat very gently in a small pan , all you want to do is dissolve the sugar and the salt then remove this from the heat and put in a cool bowl so that is does not evaporate any more.  The last thing that you want to do is cook away all the aromatics in the vinegar.

Now take your rice and on the stove with the heat on full.  Make sure that the lid is tight and in place, so no steam escapes in the cooking process.  When the rice is at boiling point turn the heat down and simmer for fifteen minutes.  Then turn the heat off and let it stand for about fifteen minutes.

Now add the vinegar sugar mix cutting it in to the rice with a spatula in a figure of eight pattern. First take the rice out of the pan , in to a wooden bowl id you have one and as you mix fan the rice to cool it as you mix it. Then keep fanning and folding until the rice has cook down to room temperature. This can take up to 10 minutes .

The rice should be shiny and sticky, with each grain separated and not mashed together. If you do not use it straight away, cover it with a damp cloth to stop it from going hard.

And that is how you should make sushi rice, now to get the right cooking time is very hard as you can not see threw the lid of the pan but that is part of the art of cooking this rice.  Evan to this day I get close but not right yet.