Inarizushi: A Different Kind Of Sushi

Yeah, it seems that my sushi kick is not totally over yet – will it ever be? I have never heard of inarizushi before. I accidentally read about while browsing the Internet and it made me want to try one.

So what is inarizushi and how is it different from the “normal” sushi that we eat? Gale Fox describes is really well:

Inarizushi is a form of sushi that stuffs the vinegared rice into teriyaki-seasoned pouches of deep fried tofu. It was invented by a Tokyo chef in 1848 who advertised his creation with the emblem of the Inari shrines. Inarizushi is great for hikes, as the vinegar, sugar, soy sauce and sake preserve it from the bottom of the mountain to the picnic at the top. It’s a plain-looking dish, on the sweet side, but you can dress it up with colored cross-cultural condiments of the season. Every batch features ofukurononaji, the taste of home-cooking, because each chef seasons it just a bit differently.

I think it’s the tofu that makes me really want to try this dish. I love tofu and am always willing to try different ways of cooking it but deep fried, in my opinion, is the best. Combine that with vinegared rice and you simply can’t go wrong!

This kind of sushi is even better for those who have qualms about eating raw fish or any other kind of seafood. More so, for those who have allergic reactions to seafood (like me), inarizushi should provide an alternative. I wonder how I would like the sweet taste to it, though?

Photo courtesy of panduh

Is Sushi Good For You?

I finally satisfied my sushi craving the other day when I went out to eat with several friends. It was actually a funny meal because I had just spent the whole afternoon at the hospital getting some tests done and then met up with my friends for dinner. While gorging ourselves on the delectable pieces of sushi that the chef whipped up, we found ourselves talking about the health benefits of sushi.

Does sushi really have health benefits or is it just good to eat?

Well if you think about it, sushi is simply rice and fish. Of course, different varieties would have vegetables, other kinds of seafood, and sometimes sesame seed. Whether the fish is cooked or not, the fact that sushi has very low fat content remains the same. More so, sushi also has low cholesterol and caloric content. That is good, isn’t it?

In addition to these things, having seafood as the main ingredient implies another healthy reason to eat sushi. Certain seafood have a healthy does of Omega-3 fatty acids. Technical term aside, this simply means that seafood is good for your heart! As such, sushi is not only low in fat and other “bad” stuff, but it also has something good for your body!

Last, take a look at vegetables and the seaweed that is used to wrap the sushi in. These ingredients are definitely high in nutrients and other healthy things (notice that I cannot enumerate them). Cheryl Koch over at Yahoo Health says that phytochemicals are present as well.

I guess I have presented my argument quite convincingly, huh? Sushi is indeed good for the health.

Photo courtesy of breezeDebris

Sushi Safety: Parasites?

Alright, mercury I can take, but parasites? I have heard stories of people getting sick because of parasites but I have always thought that they were merely urban legends. When I ran across Ross Christensen’s series of posts on “How Safe Is Your Sushi?”, I realized just how serious this issue can be. In the course of my research, I also ran across other articles with opposing views.

Elaine Magee, MPH, RD, encourages others to go ahead and eat sushi. She states:

• Order sushi from reputable restaurants, where the restaurant and fish provider follow food safety standards. You can ask if the fish has been previously frozen.
• Completely cooked is always the safest way to eat fish
• The FDA recommends that you don’t risk eating raw fish if you’re pregnant or have a compromised immune system.
• Don’t make your own sushi with raw fish unless you can freeze the fish for more than 72 hours at 4 degrees Fahrenheit.

On the other hand, Michael Vaughn is strongly opposed to eating raw fish himself:

It’s not that I’m opposed to it; I’ve just been working in the seafood industry for too long that the thought of eating sashimi and raw-form sushi gives me the willies.

That’s not to say that he discourages others from doing it. He has some nice tips in his article as well.

So it’s up to you. Should you eat raw fish? I personally think that if you like it, go ahead. You should just follow the suggestions provided by experts. The Japanese have been eating sushi all their lives – how many people do you know have had cases of parasite infection because of it?

Photo courtesy of Giant Gingko

Sushi Safety: On Mercury

As you can probably surmise by now, my craving for sushi has not abated. This is due to the fact that I haven’t had the chance to get me some! In any case, I thought that it would be apt to talk more about sushi in the next few posts.

Did you know that there have been safety concerns regarding sushi? I suppose this issue is inevitable – raw fish, hello? If you do a search on Google or any other search engine using the term “sushi mercury” you will get a lot of results. This is because early this year, a lot of fuss was made over the levels of mercury that can be found in raw tuna, which is one of the most commonly used ingredients for sushi.

As recent as January of this year, MSNBC published an article detailing the potential dangers of this wonderful food:

Lab tests commissioned by the New York Times found so much mercury in tuna in 20 Manhattan restaurants and stores that eating six pieces a week would exceed acceptable levels set by the Environmental Protection Agency, the newspaper reported.

So should we be concerned? I don’t think so:

Sushi tuna is most often linked to high levels of mercury, but don’t panic if you’ve eaten a lot recently. According to the Food and Drug Administration, one week’s consumption doesn’t change the level of methylmercury in the body much at all. If you eat a lot one week, you can cut back the next week or two and you’ll be fine.

So there! The media sometimes makes too much of a fuss over a simple thing that shouldn’t really cause concern. The Japanese eat sushi A LOT and are they being poisoned by mercury? I think not!

Photo courtesy of Giant Gingko

Craving For Sushi

What can I say? I love sushi and tonight, I am craving for some. Unfortunately, it is a bit too late to go out as the restaurants are already probably closed. This prompted me to go online and take a closer look at sushi and its origins instead. I know, reading about sushi is a very poor substitute to actually enjoying it as a meal but oh well, there is always tomorrow.

So where did sushi come from?

It seems that the art of sushi goes a long way back - all the way to the 7th century. According to Eatsushi.com, the Japanese adopted this form of pickling from the Southeast Asians. They put their own twist to it by wrapping raw fish in rice. The fermenting fish would then induce lactic acid production in the rice, which would then pickle the wrapped fish. Clever, isn’t it?

This practice, however, took too long. That is perhaps why, in the 17th century, vinegar became part of the recipe for sushi. This addition is attributed to Matsumoto Yoshiichi. Still, this version of sushi is not what we are used to today.

Perhaps the closest version of sushi that is quite popular around the world today is the one that emerged in the 1820s. This sushi version is attributed to Hanaya Yohei, who made use of sashimi and other seafood combined with vinegar rice. He served his delectable morsels straight from his sushi stall – much like what we order in Japanese restaurants today.

This hasn’t really helped my craving but I hope that the post was as informative for you as it was for me.

Cosplay Restaurants

Establishments that have themes are quite popular around the world but trust the Japanese to go all out when it comes to theme restaurants! Have you ever heard of Cosplay restaurants or maid cafes? These are theme restaurants which feature maids or butlers (the latter is dubbed butler café, obviously) – elegantly dressed.

Cosplay restaurants started in the Akihabara section of Tokyo around the year 2000. The idea behind these theme restaurants is for the maids or butlers to provide personalized service to the patrons – service that one would get from a personal maid or butler at home. Though the Cosplay restaurants started in Tokyo, they have spread out to other Japanese cities and even other countries such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Mexico, and Canada!

A visitor to Japan should not miss the chance to have his or her own personal maid or butler at one of the Cosplay cafes – especially if you cannot afford to have your own at home! Just to clear things up, though, there are definitely NO sexual overtones to the maids and butlers at these cafes. They are there to bring the most relaxing experience to their patrons and to provide them pampering and care while dining and drinking. That’s it.

In certain cases, a customer can actually pay extra to have the maid or butler play cards and similar games with them or to have a picture taken. The time allowed for such activities are limited, though, and one would have to pay more for extra time – marks of the good Japanese business sense!

Miso And Its Health Benefits

While we are on the subject of miso, let me share with you the health benefits of this wonderful soup. Though, of course, its primary purpose (at least for me) is to satisfy my tummy and make me feel better, miso does have potential health benefits. I ran across this article from Associate Content written by Scott Kessman. In it, he details the benefits that miso soup can give to our health.

For women, consuming a bowl of miso a day can help keep breast cancer at bay. The reason for this lies in the inherent nature of the main ingredient, which is fermented soy bean. Another thing about miso is that it is supposed to regulate the production of estrogen in women. This, in turn, helps keep tumors from developing.

Miso also contains a whole lot of other nutrients such as Vitamin E and Vitamin B12. These vitamins help in increasing our immune system. In addition to these, miso contains antioxidants. We all know how antioxidants have come to the forefront because of their anti-aging and anti-cancer properties. Of course, miso contains protein, making it a good alternative to other protein-rich food such as beef and pork.

How about the other ingredients in the soup? The seaweed that is normally included in the dish is purported to have the effect of lowering cholesterol levels. Combine the seaweed with miso paste and what you get is something to help combat problems related to nicotine.

Indeed, miso soup is not only food for the soul but for the body as well!

Miso Soup: Comfort Food

The past few weeks have been quite harrying for me and more than once, I found myself hankering for a big bowl of miso soup. What can I say? This, for me, is one of the best things to have when I need comfort food.

Japanese miso is perhaps the most popular soup that is included in their meals. It goes with anything, really. Miso is basically soy bean paste and is used as a base for the soup. Other ingredients are added to the soup, which is light and at the same time hearty, especially if fish is added to it.

There are different variants to miso, but here is one that I normally use. It is very basic and the ingredients can be found at most Japanese grocery stores.

Ingredients:

Miso paste (red)
Leeks
Japanese silken tofu
Salt
White fish cubes

Here’s how to make it:

Boil about 4 cups of water. Once it reaches a boil, put 3 heaping tablespoons of the red miso paste and stir vigorously. You can use less or more of the paste, depending on your preferences. Let the soup simmer for a minute and then add the fish cubes. Let it simmer for another 3 minutes and then put the leeks and the tofu in. Stir the soup again and let it simmer for another minute. Add salt to taste.

It would be better with some seaweed and some dashi stock – this adds more taste – but sometimes dashi is hard to find in my area. Sometimes I also add a bit of onion for added taste.

Japanese Tonkatsu Recipe

Japanese food is one of the best cuisines in the world. Who has not experienced that craving for Japanese food at least once in their lives? For me, it is more like once a week – at least!

One of my favorite dishes is pork tonkatsu. It is one of the most basic dishes in Japanese cuisine. I am sure that most people have tasted tonkatsu or at least know about it. It is basically lean pork slices cut to about 2 centimeters thick. This thickness could vary, of course. The meat is dredged in a breading of some sort and then fried. The result is a crisp outside covering steamy and tender meat. Tonkatsu is usally served with bowls of steaming rice, dipping sauce, and shredded cabbage (or bean sprouts in some cases).

How to make tonkatsu? Here’s a simple recipe that I found over at Tokyo Cube.

Ingredients - Serves 4 people
• Pork loin steak - 4 slices
• Plain flour - 3 tablespoons
• Bread crumbs - 50g *
• Egg - 1
• Salt and pepper - a little
• Vegetable & Fruit sauce - suitable amount *

Step 1 - Prepare
In preparation, cut small incisions into the surface of the Pork just to tenderise the meat, particularly in the muscle and fat areas, to help make the meat a little softer. Once the meat is tenderised, sprinkle salt and pepper onto both sides.

Step 2 - Add Ingredients
Add the plain flour to both sides of the meat and place directly into the bowl containing mixed raw egg. After thoroughly soaking the meat with the raw egg, put the bread crumbs all over the meat.

Tip: After adding flour, shake off meat to avoid the breadcrumb coating coming off after cooking.

Step 3 - Heat and serve
Carefully submerge the meat in a saucepan of oil, first heating each side for 2 minutes at 150 degrees. Then, increase the heat to 180 degrees and continue heating for a further 1 minute. Once the meat is cooked through, slice into suitably sized pieces and serve with vegetables. Finally, drizzle vegetable & fruit sauce over meat and enjoy

Try it this weekend!

Gordon Ramsay at the Conrad Tokyo

I like Japanese food a lot – who doesn’t? Now I haven’t had much experience with British food but I do believe they have some quite interesting dishes. So what better fusion than British and Japanese food?

For those who are interested in this kind of fusion, you are in luck. On the 19th of this month, world renowned chef Gordon Ramsay is going to hold a gala dinner at a restaurant in Tokyo. Named Gordon Ramsay at the Conrad Tokyo, the restaurant is actually co-owned by the chef himself. It opened in 2005 and is Ramsay’s first Japanese restaurant.

The gala dinner is going to be served from 7 pm to 10 pm on the 19th and is purported to have a total of 7 courses. The whole meal is going to be prepared personally by Ramsay and will cost 35,000 yen per person!

Aside from the special gala dinner, the people of Tokyo are set for a treat with Sunday Lunch – a new menu which is based on Ramsay’s famous book “Gordon Ramsay Sunday Lunch.” The offerings will be held on the 19th of April from 11:30 am to 3:00 pm and on the 20th of April from 11:30 am to 2:00 pm. Prices for these two events are at 8,800 yen per person.

Where to go? The restaurant is conveniently located on the 28th floor of the Conrad Hotel in Tokyo, which is housed in the Shiodome Building.