The days are getting shorter and the weather’s getting colder, making it the perfect time of year for enjoying a warming soup.
In Japan, Miso soup comes with everything, whatever the weather. In fact, along with rice it is one of the key ingredients of a traditional Japanese breakfast and most of the 128million or so people that live there will have Miso soup at least once a day.
It is a clear broth which sometimes has chunks of seaweed or tofu in it and has a distinctive smoky taste. It normally comes served in a small, lacquered bowl with a lid and is drunk straight from the bowl with the solid ingredients eaten with chopsticks.
The Miso stock is known as dashi and is a fish stock made from dried fish and kelp. Miso itself is a seasoning made from a base of barley, rice or soybeans which are fermented to form a salty paste. For the soup, Miso paste is softened and mixed into the dashi. The other ingredients are added according to taste or regional variation and can include mushrooms, vegetables, tofu, daikon radish or wakame seaweed to name a few.
There are different types of Miso pastes which give a different character or flavour to the soup which, again, vary according to the region you are visiting and the season.
Miso soup normally comes at the start of your meal and, in Japan, usually precedes a salad course. It is surprisingly filling, even though it is mostly a broth, and is known for being very low in fat and having a high a high vitamin content.
If you don’t fancy making a dashi from scratch, there are a number of delicious instant Miso soup brands available which just need a kettle and are ideal for lunch. Tasty Miso paste can also be used as a marinade for meat, fish or vegetables or as a stock for noodle soup.
It is a versatile and unusual flavour that’s quite unique but can add a rich smoky dimension to your meals this autumn.
The TSM – 10 Nigiri Sushi Making Machine is Exclusivly available in the UK from sushisushi.co.uk
please call +44 (0)113 8151871 for further details.
The worlds first Cordless Automatic sushi machine
Totally cord free, with a handle for ease of carrying and storage
Selectable Power Sources
Choose from Mains, 8 hour life rechargable lithium ion batteries or 8 Standard AA Batteries
Worlds Smallest
170mm wide x 270mm Deep x 330mm High
Worlds Lightest
Just 6KG!
Simple Operation
Easy to use with just a stop/start button and adjuster for density of you rice ball. Once your completed rice ball is removed sensors in the TSM – 10 tell it to produce another.
Fast, Quality Production
The TSM – 10 can produce 1200 rice balls in ust 1 hour.
Safe
The TSM – 10 automatically shuts down when you open the front hatch.
Patented sushi rice ball forming method
No other sushi machine makes rice balls in this way. Ingeniously simple design means less to break, less to clean.
Low Cost
Compared with traditional automatic sushi making machines the TSM – 10 is great value and will allow your sushi bar, sushi take away or Japanese restaurant to produce more sushi at a fraction of the cost whilst keeping high level of quality.
The spring cherry blossoms in Japan are world famous but Autumn is equally beautiful as the leaves on the trees change into vibrant, fiery colours known as Koyo.
The Koyo starts in mid-September on the northern island of Hokkaido and slowly moves southwards until it has transformed the whole country by the end of November.
This recipe uses some delicious autumn ingredients and is a fabulous accompaniment to both Japanese and Western dishes. It is unusual but tastes great and the ingredients are easy to find at Sushi Sushi and your local supermarket.
Take 2 medium sized, dried shitake mushrooms, soak them in a bowl of warm water for 30 minutes then squeeze them dry, cut off the stems and chop them up roughly.
Cut about 200g of chestnuts into quarters – they are easy to find at this time of year and can be bought fresh, tinned, dried or vacum packed. Each requires a slightly different preparation method but all give food that delicious smokey flavour.
Peel and dice a small sweet potato.
Mix the mushroom, chestnuts, sweet potato, a teaspoon of salt, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and 2 tablespoons of mirin.
Add this mixture to a pan on the hob or a rice cooker and mix with your uncooked sushi rice and the required amount of water to cook it (just follow the instructions on the packet)
Cook the rice for 10-15minutes or as directed and, once it’s cooked. leave it to stand, covered for a further ten minutes.
Use a wooden rice paddle to break it up and served sprinkled with sesame seeds and daikon radish.
The first time I saw seaweed on a menu, I found it hard to picture anything but the knobbly, wet greenery that washes up on beaches across Britain.
It was not the Chinese that brought seaweed to our dinner plates, we have been eating it here for years (like in Welsh laver bread) though in the Far East, it has been a staple of their diet for thousands of years.
Historians have found evidence that six types of seaweeds were used in 800 A.D in everyday cooking in Japan and nori, which is used in sushi, dates back to this period.
Nori is just one type of edible seaweed which comes in dried sheets to wrap round your sushi. The dried sheets are made by a process of shredding and rack drying. It was originally made as a paste and then turned into sheets using similar methods to traditional ways of making paper. The nori is farmed in nets on the seas surface and, in Japan; over 230 square miles of Japanese coastal waters are used to produce 350,000 tonnes of nori each year.
Nori sheets are a true sushi essential and used for sushi rolls, temaki cones, gunkanmaki and more. There are different brands and different qualities but sushi is generally best eaten fresh as the nori stays slightly crisp and doesn’t pick up moisture from the rice or filling.
In Japanese cooking seaweed is used for a range of other dishes. Different seaweeds like Wakame, come in dried strips that expand when wet and are perfect for flavouring soups and can be used in salads if fresh. Other types like Dried kelp can also be used to make a delicious stock for soups or vegetables.
Seaweed is also something of a superfood and is low in fat and high in iron, calcium, vitamin A, B and C, fibre, and protein so it is good for your diet and your taste buds and a delicious way to eat your greens.
Lay out your chosen ingredients as described in the sushi magic
handbook. Grab the sushi roller handles
and bring the roller bar over the ingredients.
2> Roll your sushi!
The special bar holds the fillings in place.
Then when you turn the handles the sushi magic sushi roll maker evenly rolls up the rice
around the ingredients.
3> Shape your sushi roll
Professionally designed moulding allows perfect and
even pressure to compact and accurately shape
the sushi roll Just like only a skilled sushi chef can.
4> Unroll the sushi makers mat
Un-roll the non-stick silicone mat. Using a
table knife, spread tobiko or sesame seed topping on your maki sushi roll.
5> One perfect sushi roll
Makes a perfect compacted sushi roll. Here we’ve
made an inside-out California roll but the sushi magic sushi making kit makes all kinds of sushi rolls, just use your imagination!
6> Slice and Serve!
Slice and serve with freshly mixed wasabi paste. gari ginger and kikkoman soy sauce for the perfect sushi dish. The sushi magic sushi roll maker is now really easy
to clean due to its construction from hygienic materials. it’s so easy!
Quickly and easily produces up to 8 pieces of Nigiri at once
Reproduces the skills of the experienced sushi chef (itame)
No rice mess due to non-stick materials
A great money saver
great for parties
Get authentic sushi easily in your home
Both the maki roller AND the nigiri mould included in the kit!
Free part colour recipe book
The new Sushi Magic – Sushi Making Kit. Makes perfect nigiri and sushi rolls every time. The sushi kit costs just £24.99 and can be bought in the sushi store Click on the image below to watch the sushi lesson video
If you like wasabi, or any other sauce for that matter you can apply it using the
tip of a table knife now.
3> Add the top mould sushi rice
Add the top mould layer and simply spoon on
the rice, compact with the press tool. With Sushi Magic there’s no need to touch the sticky rice with your hands amiking it much cleaner than normal ways of making nigiri.
4> Remove to mould
Remove the top mould to reveal 8 perfectly shaped
rice balls, seafood and wasabi moulded together.
5> Tip out the nigiri sushi
The completed sushi is easily turned out of the mould.
The sushi magic nigiri maker
makes perfect nigiri sushi every time. The sushi magic nigiri maker will also make
separate rice balls for sushi specials like uni
cups and spicy scallop cups.
6> Perfect nigiri!
Look perfect nigiri sushi! just like an expert sushi chef made it.
Sushi Magic nigiri maker is the only mould available with this ability and easy to clean hygienic design.
Here’s the first video in my cooking with Sushi Stu series. This one is all about how to make Onigiri sushi. It’s so easy with just a few ingredients and the right tools, take a look…
Next time you tuck into tasty tuna sushi or sashimi, spare a minute to think where it has come from.
The Bluefin Tuna, a mighty fish indigenous to the Atlantic Ocean, has seen an 80% decline in population since the 1970s and sushi has paid a big part in this. The Bluefin can live for 30 years but very few specimens now grow to a mature age and lots of young fish are being caught and fattened up before they have a chance to breed.
The Japanese love Bluefin Tuna; they import 90% of the European stocks; now farm the species in the Pacific Ocean and a single giant tuna once sold for $100,000 on Tokyo’s Tsukiji Fish Market. The fish is a delicacy in Japan and provides most of the tuna used in Sushi due to its tender, dark red flesh that looks similar to raw beef.
Tuna is one of the principle fishes in Japanese cooking. It is used for a range of sushi dishes, cooked and raw – from the wide variety of maki rolls to delicately sliced strips of soft tuna for nigiri and sashimi.
The good news is that there’s no need to give up eating tuna completely, there are other species of the fish that are under less threat from over-fishing and are not critically endangered.
And, there are plenty of other delicious options if you are concerned about the welfare of this majestic fish. The great thing about sushi is the vast choice of fillings – fish, meat or vegetables – which means you can avoid eating the more unusual or endangered delicacies from Japanese cuisine.
More good news for the Bluefin is that the European Commission is backing a campaign to save it by listing it as an endangered species which will ban all international trade in the fish while more research is carried out on its decline, a move that has been welcomed by environmental campaigners.
In the meantime, read the labels or ask your fishmonger where your fish is coming from. It may just mean you can carry on eating your favourite seafood sushi for many more years to come.
