Traditional sushi rice dressing recipe
In the original, the rice roll dressing is more like a sauce, acting as the necessary adhesive base needed to hold its shape. To prepare, you will need a minimum set of ingredients: rice vinegar, salt and sugar. 3 tbsp is poured into the container. l. vinegar add sugar to it - 2 tbsp. l. and salt - 0.5 tsp. Prepare the sauce over low heat, stirring constantly. When the sugar has dissolved, the dressing can be removed from the heat and cooled. The resulting mixture should have a sticky consistency - this is an indicator of proper preparation. In the original, these proportions are enough to fill 2 glasses of boiled rice.
How to properly cook sushi rice?
56505 27.01.2017 0
It’s rare that someone who likes to eat sushi or rolls doesn’t come across the thought: “Shouldn’t I cook all this deliciousness myself at home?” And most often the question here is not so much economy, but rather interest and curiosity - will it work out? Of course it will work! The main thing is to cook the rice correctly :)
Everything is serious: rice is, perhaps, the main ingredient of sushi and rolls, and most importantly, the ingredient that decides whether sushi will work out or not. All other products may or may not be ideal, but if the rice doesn’t work, then it’s a disaster, it will be impossible to roll the rolls. That is why the process of cooking rice is perhaps the most critical stage. Let's talk about it in more detail. The most important thing about the rice you want to use to make sushi rolls is its texture. It can be described as follows: the rice should not be crumbly, but sticky - otherwise the sushi will turn out dry, at a minimum, and at a maximum, it will fall apart - and at the same time, it should not resemble porridge, otherwise the end result will not be sushi rolls, and rice porridge wrapped in nori. Each grain should be elastic, but the total mass should be sticky.
To achieve this, you need three things: buy the right rice, prepare it correctly and cook it correctly. The first two points are, in general, very simple. You can, of course, buy special Japanese rice for making sushi, but as practice shows, any unparboiled rice with round grains will do. The second stage is the most tedious: the rice needs to be washed. This is done like this: pour the grains into a saucepan, fill with cold water and rinse until the water becomes cloudy. Drain the water and repeat again. This must be repeated until the water in the pan becomes clear. At the same time, we get rid of the grains that float up. It seems that all this is done easily and quickly, but in practice such an activity is quite tedious :) However, you cannot skip this stage, because otherwise you will end up with an unusable product.
Rice used in Vesla Sushi. Next comes the hard part: cooking. There are two important points here. First, you need to take a minimum amount of water. You can, of course, start recommending quantities in grams and liters, but if you don’t want to get confused, keep in mind that the water in the pan should cover the rice by about 1-1.5 centimeters. The second most important point is that you should not open the pan while cooking rice. At all. At all! Therefore, if you have a pan with a glass lid, then treasure it and keep it like the apple of your eye. The cooking process is as follows: you need to bring the water with rice to a boil as quickly as possible, and as soon as it boils, set the cooking temperature to the lowest possible temperature. How long to cook depends on the amount of rice and temperature. As practice shows - 10-15 minutes. Yes, and at this stage the glass lid of the pan will help you a lot :) You need to cook until about 90% done, then remove from the heat and let it brew for another 5 minutes. Cooking rice is only half the battle, and judging by the time spent , then not even a third: it is also important to cool it to room temperature. By the way, this is a common mistake made by beginners who think, well, I’ll finish the rice in half an hour and immediately start making rolls. No matter how it is: it takes at least an hour to cool the rice, depending on its quantity, and it is absolutely impossible to roll rolls with hot rice. Firstly, the nori sheets shrink, and secondly, it’s just unpleasant. Therefore, get used to the idea that it can take 3 hours to prepare sushi from A to Z. However, the cooling process can be accelerated. To do this, you need to choose some kind of container that is as wide as possible, ideally wooden. If you really can’t stand it, you can also fan the rice with something like a fan. By the way, some believe that in this case the grains acquire a beautiful matte shine. And visual beauty and appetizing appearance are not the least important components of proper sushi rolls :)
Let the rice cool - it’s time to prepare the dressing for it. No, of course, you can buy a special dressing in a special section of the supermarket, but making it yourself is not difficult. Take salt and sugar in equal parts and dissolve them in rice vinegar. If you don’t have rice vinegar, apple cider vinegar will do. And don’t listen to the “maniacs” who will try to convince you that this is wrong: most likely, the “wrong” vinegar will be hidden by other shortcomings of unprofessional preparation :) To speed up the dissolution process, the mixture needs to be heated. Now the proportions. In general, this is a matter of taste, but you can start with the following formula: two tablespoons of vinegar plus a teaspoon of salt and sugar per half kilo of finished rice. Try what you get in the end, and if you don’t like it, reduce or increase the amount of sauce. Just don’t pour it into still hot rice - let it cool a little. Overall, cooking sushi rice at home is not exactly magic, but it is something that requires practice and observation. There are too many factors influencing the result: the rice itself, the water, the dishes, and the stove. Or maybe even your mood :)
Spicy dressing with nutty flavor
This is an original recipe; to prepare it you will need nuts, or rather nut butter made from cashews or peanuts. Paste (3 tbsp) is dissolved in water (100 ml) over low heat. Then apple cider vinegar (1 tbsp), soy sauce (4 tbsp) and sesame oil (2 tsp) are added to the resulting mixture. To prevent the dressing from being too thick, you can add water (100-150 ml).
Cook the sauce over low heat until it thickens. If the dressing for sushi rice is prepared correctly, it will have a pleasant consistency and delicate taste with a subtle nutty undertone.
Recipes for cooking rice for sushi and rolls
In addition to the above-described recipe for cooking rice, there is a wide variety of other variations, differing in the time required for cooking. We will show you some interesting recipes for preparing rice for rolls.
1) Fast way.
This recipe is suitable for those who need to quickly prepare rolls. You will need:
- A glass of round unpolished rice,
- 2 glasses of water,
- 1 tsp. salt,
- 1 tsp. Sahara,
- 1 tsp. lemon juice,
- 2 tbsp. l. rice vinegar.
Rinse the rice under cold water. Pour 2 glasses of water into the pan and bring to a boil, then add a glass of washed rice. Reduce the burner flame to low and continue cooking the rice until it has absorbed all the remaining water, after covering it with a lid.
While the rice is cooking, prepare the dressing. Mix all the remaining ingredients in a small container and put on the fire, as soon as everything is dissolved, remove from the stove and soak the cooked rice, then cover with a towel and leave for 15 minutes to fully cook.
2) Traditional recipe for a slow cooker.
If you have enough time, energy and desire, then you should try boiling rice for rolls according to a traditional recipe.
Everything is a little more complicated here. First, you need to sort the rice, removing all the bad grains and excess debris. Then you should rinse it well: rub the grains on the bottom of the container in which you wash it to remove as much rice starch from the grain as possible. Drain the cloudy water and add new water until the rice gives up all the excess starch. When the water becomes clear, add a new portion of cold water to the cereal and set the pan aside for an hour.
The first and most difficult part of the preparation is completed. Now you can start cooking. Pour the rice into the multicooker container, fill it with water in a ratio of 1:2 and turn it on in the automatic “Rice” mode. While the rice is cooking, prepare the dressing using the recipe above, then pour it over the cooked rice. Bon appetit!
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Apple cider vinegar sauce
Rice dressing with apple cider vinegar has a delicate taste and delicate aroma, the sushi turns out juicy and literally melts in your mouth. For preparation, take apple cider vinegar - 4 tbsp. l. and regular table vinegar - 1 tbsp, as well as sugar - 4 tbsp. l. and a little salt. All ingredients are mixed in a metal container and cooked over low heat until thick. Before combining with rice, the dressing must be cooled.
You need to add any dressing for rice for rolls in portions, stirring carefully so that the rice does not turn into porridge. Having an adhesive structure, the sauce will help you easily form rolls, giving them the necessary juiciness and pleasant taste. Preparing rolls is a painstaking but exciting process that will allow you to enjoy a delicious dish. And for those who are not ready for such a “feat”, there is fast delivery of rolls and sushi from professional Japanese chefs.
How to choose rice?
To make your rolls tasty and look like real Japanese sushi, you should choose the right rice. The outcome of your choice will be the success of making sushi at home.
When going to the store to buy rice, we recommend choosing coarse-grain rice. It is used in most methods of preparing rolls. The point is in its special structure: after cooking, this rice sticks together better, which is an indispensable property in the process of preparing delicious homemade rolls.
In some stores you can see special Japanese rice intended specifically for sushi. It costs much more than other types of rice, but, as many lovers of Japanese cuisine say, it is practically no different from coarse-grain rice, so there is no point in overpaying once again just for packaging.
Once you have successfully selected the rice, you can consider the task 40% complete. The rest of the matter is to cook it correctly. Let's look at a few recipes with which you can do this at home.
