As with many good things, I am picky with sushi.
Fish is the centerpiece. It needs to be good, more than good. Otherwise I prefer to eat a carrot and a piece of bread (that's another story to write, how I prefer a good carrot to so-so fish, and that means that one must be able to recognize a good carrot).
Then is the rice. I love rice. If I was forced to choose one food and eat nothing else for the rest of my life, I would surely go for rice. Of course there are tastier foods, but one I could imagine eating every single day of my life? I don't think so.
But rice needs to be good too. And hot. Steaming fresh rice, which smells like a paddy field when ripe... Mmmhhh. That's why I am somehow disappointed by sushi rice. It's cold. And the vinegary taste is completely unnecessary.
Finally comes the nori seaweed. It complements fish and rice really well. Maki rolls are a great invention. But here again, I add a restriction. Nori is wonderful when it is crisp and crunchy. Unfortunately, when you turn it into a maki roll, it gets soft with the contact of the rice.
So I started again from scratch, and reinvented the simplest and best raw fish-with-rice-and-seaweed recipe. I don't dare call it sushi because this is probably not genuine, but it is genuinely good! Here is how it goes.
Preparation
1 - Buy very good fresh fish and cut it into slices (not big, not too small).
2 - Steam some rice, for instance thai rice (avoid non-stick rice: we want the rice to stay together)
3 - Cut the nori seaweed into 10-15cm squares. Bake them in the oven (150°C) for a few minutes, so that they are warm and crisp. This is necessary if the pack is not freshly opened; even if so, the extra-crispness is worth the effort.
4 - Pour a little soy sauce into a small bowl. Pour a few tablespoons of oil into another bowl (olive oil is perfect).
5 - Nothing. Preparation ends here. Jump to Eating
Eating
Take a square of nori in your hand.
With a teaspoon, drop and smear a few drops of oil on the nori. The oil film will keep the rice from wetting the nori, keeping it crisp until it reaches your mouth.
With chopsticks or a spoon, put a moutful of rice on the nori.
Pick a slice of fish, dip it lightly in soy sauce if you like, then place it on top of the rice. Roll up and bite into it immediately.
So easy, so good... 💗
