Sushi studies

Head to a sushi restaurant for dinner and it’s easy to enjoy a healthful and tasty meal.

It’s also easy to put a serious dent in your bank account. Good sushi is like popcorn; it’s easy to eat one piece after another until, oops, there goes the Christmas fund.

Atsumi McCauley, a longtime teacher of Japanese cooking and the Japanese language, wants to help people save a little money. Her solution? Make sushi at home.

Before you get all freaked out about serving raw fish to your friends and family, know this: Sushi isn’t all about raw fish, and it isn’t hard to make. “Sushi” actually means vinegared rice, McCauley said.

“It’s kind of a picnic food,” she said. “Vinegar is in it to keep it a long time.”

Sure, raw fish sushi is popular, but it’s a fairly recent phenomenon. According to the new book “The Sushi Experience” by Hiroko Shimbo, sushi was developed hundreds of years ago as a way to preserve fish. The dish evolved into the original fast food, with carts sprouting up all over 19th-century Edo (Tokyo) selling rice balls topped with cooked or cured fish or shellfish, Shimbo writes. Raw fish sushi didn’t come about until after World War II, when technology allowed for safer transport and storage of raw fish.

The fact is, McCauley said, it can be hard to find sushi-grade raw fish in Spokane. So come on with the vegetables, omelets, smoked salmon, tofu, cooked shrimp, the roasted eel and – quite soon – fresh Dungeness crab.

“Anything that tastes good with rice is good with sushi,” McCauley said.

Each spring and fall, McCauley holds a series of cooking classes at the Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute’s Japanese Cultural Center. She walks students through the basics of maki sushi, or rolled sushi, and nigiri sushi, those hand-formed rice balls rice topped with fish. She also introduces oshi sushi, a pressed sushi, inari sushi, in which sushi ingredients are stuffed into a tofu pouch, and chirashi sushi, or “scattered” sushi. It’s sushi rice tossed with your favorite sushi fillings and served in a bowl.

So what do you need to make sushi? The equipment is easy to find and pretty cheap. A bamboo rolling mat can be yours for a few dollars at any of Spokane’s Asian markets or at better-stocked grocery or kitchen supply stores.

To make rolled sushi, you’ll need nori (pressed seaweed), rice vinegar, short-grain rice, soy sauce and wasabi powder, which are available in Asian markets, shops such as World Market and some grocery outlets.

For nigiri sushi, you could do as the real sushi chefs do and spend years learning how to make perfect little hand-formed rice balls. Or, you can buy a nigiri sushi mold. Press the rice into the mold and close the lid. Presto! Five perfectly formed rice balls. If you can’t find the press at your local Asian market, they’re available online at amazon.com, surlatable.com and mrslinskitchen.com.

After that, it’s up to your imagination. McCauley buys lox-style smoked salmon at Costco. She finds roasted eel in the freezer section of a local Asian market, where she also buys pickled daikon radish and pickled ginger. The other ingredients come from her favorite local grocers.

When it comes to assembling the sushi, there are a few popular combinations to consider. The California roll includes avocado, cucumber, crab – imitation will do if fresh isn’t available, McCauley said – and mayonnaise.

Mayonnaise? “Mayonnaise is so good with rice,” she said.

McCauley’s Washington roll is smoked salmon, cucumber and apples. A Seattle roll is smoked salmon, cream cheese and avocado. If you want to make these rolls luxurious, McCauley said, add a little flying fish roe. It adds a briny flavor and a tasty little pop to the sushi. It’s not easy to find, nor is it cheap. From amazon.com, a pound will cost $69.

Usually, a Japanese family will have its own combination of ingredients. McCauley’s mother’s recipe includes cooked spinach, omelet, shiitake mushrooms and carrots.

“If you visit Japanese friends, every family’s (roll) has a different flavor,” McCauley said.

Before getting started, prep your ingredients and have your utensils ready. When the rice has been cooked and seasoned (see recipes below), you’re ready to get started.

Place a sheet of nori smooth-side down on a bamboo rolling mat. Be sure to place the nori on the mat with one of the short sides toward you. Using your fingers, spread about 1 cup warm rice on the nori, pushing rice to the edges on the bottom and on both sides, leaving about 1 inch of nori on the top. Keep a small bowl of water and vinegar nearby to rinse your hands when they get too sticky.

Try to keep the rice even, and don’t pile on too much. The idea is to create a piece of sushi small enough that you can pop into your mouth.

Place the filling ingredients in a row beginning about 1/2 to 3/4 inch up from the bottom. To roll, pull up the mat and fold it over the fillings. Take care not to roll the bamboo mat into the sushi. Continue to roll and gently press, roll and gently press, until the roll is complete. Place roll seam-side down. The warmth and moisture of the rice should seal the seam, McCauley said. If the nori comes loose, dab a little water on the dry nori to seal the seam.

Place roll on a cutting board and, using your sharpest knife, cut off pieces 1/2 inch thick, from right to left, making 10 pieces. Rinse your knife as needed to make cutting easier.

Serve with a small bowl of soy sauce and a dollop of wasabi paste. Add a small mound of pickled ginger to serve as a palate cleanser.

To make nigiri sushi, prepare and season sushi rice. Hand-form the rice into small balls or use a nigiri sushi mold. Add a dab of wasabi paste on top of the rice mold. Top with a slice of smoked salmon, roasted eel, seasoned tofu, egg, a shrimp or the topping of your choice. McCauley urges her students to use their taste buds and their eyes when creating sushi.

“Japanese cooking is art,” she said. “It always looks good.”

Atsumi’s Makizushi

This recipe from Atsumi McCauley should make 100 pieces of sushi, plenty for a party of 5 to 6 people.

10 whole dried shiitake mushrooms

1 1/2 cups warm water

4 medium carrots

9 tablespoons sugar, divided

4 tablespoons soy sauce

1/2 bunch fresh spinach

6 eggs

1 teaspoon salt

Oil

4 to 5 cups short-grain rice, to make 10 cups cooked rice

4 to 6 ounces of seasoned rice vinegar

1 10-piece package of nori

Wasabi paste

Soy sauce

Pickled ginger

Soak shiitake mushrooms in warm water for 30 minutes. (Mushrooms should be completely covered with water.)

Slice carrots lengthwise, 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick. They should look like chopsticks.

Place shiitakes with soaking liquid in a pan with the carrots. Add 6 tablespoons of sugar and the soy sauce. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until all the liquid is gone, being careful not to scorch the pan.

In another pot, bring water to boil. Add spinach and cook for 30 seconds. Rinse under cold water. Squeeze excess water from the leaves. Cut into 8-inch lengths.

Mix 3 eggs with 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Fry in a lightly oiled pan like a thin omelet. Cool. Repeat with remaining eggs, sugar and salt. Cut into 1/4- to 1/3-inch strips.

Rinse rice and drain thoroughly. Combine with equal parts water and cook via stovetop method, according to package directions, or in a rice cooker. When rice is done, let it sit, covered, for 15 minutes. Transfer rice to large bowl and add vinegar to taste. Using wooden rice paddles or spoons, mix the rice and vinegar to combine, breaking up clumps as needed.

Spread about 1 cup rice on a piece of nori and add the fillings – eggs, mushrooms, carrots and spinach. Roll and cut into eight pieces.

Repeat with remaining ingredients.

Serve with wasabi, soy sauce, and pickled ginger on the side.

Note: If you’re using a rice cooker, it will take 5 cups of raw rice, using the measuring cup that came with the cooker, to get 10 cups of cooked rice.

Yield: 100 pieces sushi, plenty for a party of 5 to 6 people

Approximate nutrition per piece, based on 100 per recipe: 37 calories, less than 1 gram fat (9 percent fat calories), 1 gram protein, 7.5 grams carbohydrate, 13 milligrams cholesterol, less than 1 gram dietary fiber, 100 milligrams sodium.

McCauley loves to bring shortcuts to sushi making, giving her dishes a more homemade feel. Using pre-seasoned rice vinegar is one of those shortcuts.

“If you make sushi often and you really know the difference between homemade dressing and the store-bought dressing, then go ahead and make your own,” McCauley said. “If you ask your Japanese friends, the majority of people use store-bought dressing. If this is your first time, I recommend store-bought dressing.”

For those foodie purists out there, detailed directions for a more traditional way to make sushi rice, from Shimbo’s book, are posted on the Spokesman-Review Web site spokesmanreview.com/food.

For those who like to combine homemade and easy, here’s a recipe for you.

Sushi Rice

Adapted from Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything”

1 1/2 cups short-grain rice, well rinsed and drained

2 1/2 cups water

1 teaspoon salt, or to taste

1/3 cup unseasoned rice vinegar

1/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon salt

Combine rice, water and 1 teaspoon salt in a large saucepan with a tight-fitting lid and let sit for about 30 minutes. The rice will absorb much of the water.

Cover the pan, place it over high heat, and bring to a boil. Turn the heat to medium-low and cook, undisturbed, for 15 minutes.

Turn off the heat. The rice will be done in 10 minutes, or will hold for up to 1 hour.

While the rice is cooking, combine the vinegar, sugar and 1 tablespoon salt in a small saucepan. Turn the heat to medium and cook, stirring, until the sugar dissolves, less than five minutes. Place the vinegar mixture in a bowl, set inside another bowl filled with ice and stir it to cool.

When the rice is done, place it in a bowl more than twice the size needed to hold the rice – probably the largest bowl you have. Begin to toss the hot rice with a flat wooden paddle, spoon or rubber spatula – as if you were folding egg whites into a batter, but much faster and not quite as gently. While you’re tossing, sprinkle the rice with the vinegar mixture (if the paddle becomes encrusted with rice, dip it in some water, then shake the water off and proceed). The idea is to cool the rice quickly as it absorbs the vinegar.

Sushi rice will not keep for long, but if you cover it with a damp cloth, you can wait a couple of hours to proceed. Or eat it right way.

Yield: Enough rice for six sushi rolls

Approximate nutrition per 1-ounce serving: 20 calories, no fat, less than 1 gram protein, 5 grams carbohydrate, no cholesterol, less than 1 gram dietary fiber, 194 milligrams sodium.