Which Types of Sushi Best Test a Sushi Chef’s Abilities?
slate.com/human-interest/2015/07/which-types-of...There is one sushi that sushi chefs use to test other sushi chefs’ skills: sumaki, or rice roll. It’s seaweed-out hosomaki (thin roll) with just sushi rice inside. Eating and looking at sumaki can reveal several things:
First, it tells you a lot about sushi rice. Because sumaki has no fish or vegetables inside, you can only taste the flavor of sushi rice and seaweed. The combination of sushi rice and seaweed is the base for any traditional Japanese sushi rolls, so it will reveal the level of chef’s skill in making sushi rice and forming the roll.
читать дальшеIt will also tell you chef’s choice in reaching the recipe, such as:
Type of rice vinegar: regular versus red rice vinegar
Type of rice: region and kind (Sasanishiki, Koshihikari, California, Oregon, etc.)
Single rice or blended: Many high-profile sushi establishments blend several types of rice
Type of nori (seaweed)
It’s important to understand that one is never better than the other—just because one sushi chef uses red rice vinegar over regular rice vinegar does not automatically mean his sushi is better. It’s the reasoning behind it that matters.
Second, hosomaki should have rice evenly placed so that if they are bound together, there should be some space in between rice, so that if you were to pour some soy sauce from the top, it will run through to the sushi rice to the bottom of the roll. This is very very very difficult to achieve because you need to keep each grain of rice intact when you make sushi rice as well as when you apply it on nori and roll it. According to chef Hachiro Mizutani, a former apprentice of Jiro Ono, of Sushi Mizutani in Tokyo, the only person who can make this perfect hosomaki is Jiro Ono.
Because sumaki is only made when a master or trained sushi chef wants to see another chef’s skill, it’s not on a menu. In fact, if you are not sushi chef, you will never be able to order it—or more like you should never order it at all.