Edomae Nigirizushi (江戸前握り寿司)

// SUPPLY LIST

// OPERATIONS

1. 1 Buy both fish from a supplier who sells for raw consumption, and if there is any doubt, freeze them yourself at -20C/-4F for 7 days or -35C/-31F for 15 hours and thaw overnight in the fridge, since Edomae curing seasons fish but does not make it safe. Keep the tuna and bream in the coldest part of the fridge, 2-4C/36-39F, until each step calls for them.
2. 2 Make the nikiri, which is both the tuna marinade and the brush-on sauce that replaces a dipping bowl. Put the 30 ml mirin and 30 ml of the sake in a small stainless or enamelled saucepan and boil hard over medium heat for 1-2 minutes, until the foam collapses and the steam no longer catches at the back of your throat — this burning-off is what nikiri means. Only now add the 100 ml soy sauce, bring it to the barest simmer where a bubble breaks every second or two, and hold it there 3-4 minutes until you have about 120 ml smelling round and malty rather than sharply alcoholic; soy sauce boiled hard turns harsh and flat within a minute and never recovers its aroma, which is why it goes in after the alcohol and not with it. Cool completely to room temperature, since warm nikiri brushed on raw fish cooks the surface and turns it grey.
3. 3 Salt-cure the bream: pat the fillet bone dry, sprinkle 6 g of the fine salt evenly over both sides, and rest it on a rack over a tray in the fridge at 4C/39F for 20 minutes, until beads of water stand on the surface and the flesh has lost its floppiness and feels faintly tacky. Wipe away every trace of salt and moisture with kitchen paper dampened with about 30 ml of the rice vinegar; salt left on the surface keeps drawing water out through the whole cure and turns a 1 cm fillet to jerky.
4. 4 Wipe the two kombu sheets with a cloth dampened in the remaining 15 ml sake until they are leathery and pliable but not wet, then sandwich the bream between them so it is covered edge to edge — trim the fillet to fit the sheets rather than letting it overhang, because any flesh not touching kombu cures unevenly and stays slack. Wrap tightly in cling film and refrigerate 2 hours at 4C/39F: two hours firms the flesh and pushes glutamate into it, so it turns faintly translucent and slightly tacky to the touch. Leave it overnight, as recipes often suggest, and a 1 cm fillet goes rubbery, over-salted and dulled, which is the commonest home kobujime failure.
5. 5 While the bream cures, wash the rice: tip the 400 g into a bowl, cover with cold water, stir once with an open hand and pour it off within 10 seconds, because that first chalky water is drunk straight back into the grain. Then rub the drained grains against each other about 20 times with the heel of your hand, rinse and pour off, and repeat until the water runs faintly cloudy rather than milky, usually four or five changes, then drain in a sieve for 30 minutes so the surface water is absorbed evenly.
6. 6 Cook the rice in a heavy 20-22 cm saucepan or donabe with a tight lid: add the drained rice, the 420 ml cold water (deliberately a shade under the everyday ratio, since sushi rice must be firm enough to absorb 80 ml of vinegar later), 15 ml sake and the 5 cm kombu square on top. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat with the lid on, 6-8 minutes, and as the rattle turns to a low rolling sound lift the lid just long enough to pull the kombu out, because boiled kombu leaches slime and a bitter marine note. Drop to the lowest heat for 12 minutes, then kill the heat and steam undisturbed for 12 minutes with the lid on, no peeking.
7. 7 Meanwhile make the awase-zu: warm the 80 ml rice vinegar with 16 g caster sugar and 13 g of the fine salt in a small stainless pan over low heat to 50C/122F, stirring only until the crystals fully dissolve, then take it off within 30 seconds and cool to room temperature. If it boils you send the volatile acetic aroma up the extractor and are left with flat sweet-saltiness. Edomae shops use akazu, the amber sake-lees vinegar; if you have it, use it in place of all the rice vinegar here and cut the sugar to 8 g, since akazu carries its own sweetness and the point of it is a shari that tastes of vinegar rather than sugar.
8. 8 Wet a wooden hangiri (or the widest wooden or plastic bowl you own, never metal, which reacts with the vinegar) and wipe it almost dry, turn out all the hot rice in one movement, then pour the awase-zu over the back of a rice paddle so it lands as a broad shower rather than a puddle. Cut through the rice at a 45 degree angle in slicing strokes, lifting and turning from the bottom and never stirring or mashing, for about 60 seconds; then keep cutting with one hand while fanning with the other for 3-4 minutes, until the grains look glossy and separate and no liquid pools at the base. Cover with a cloth wrung out in water and let it settle 30-60 minutes at body temperature, 36-40C/97-104F, using it within about two hours; never refrigerate shari at any point, because below about 10C/50F the starch retrogrades into hard chalky grains and nothing brings it back.
9. 9 Cook the prawns: run a bamboo skewer along the belly of each one just under the shell from tail to head so they cook dead straight, and bring the 2 litres of water with 60 g of the salt to a rolling boil at 100C/212F in a 22-24 cm pan — that much water so 200 g of cold prawns cannot knock the boil out, which is what leaves them slack and grey at the centre. Boil 2 minutes, or 3 for kuruma ebi over 20 g, until the shells are coral-orange and the flesh at the thick head end has just turned opaque. Lift into ice water for exactly 30 seconds and no longer or they waterlog, pull the skewers while the prawns are still warm since the flesh grips them once cold, peel leaving the last tail segment, split each along the belly almost through and open it flat like a book, and flick out the vein. Pack them into a narrow container and steep 10 minutes in an amazu of 100 ml rice vinegar, 8 g of the sugar and 2 g of the salt; they must sit submerged, because anything standing proud of the liquid cures on one side only.
10. 10 Slice and zuke the tuna: stand the block with the grain running left to right and cut sogigiri, the blade laid over at about 30 degrees and drawn through in one single pull from heel to tip, into 20 slices roughly 7 cm by 3 cm and 6-7 mm thick, about 14 g each. Never saw at it, which tears the fibres and leaves a cloudy weeping surface. Lay the slices in one layer in a shallow dish, spoon over 60 ml of the cooled nikiri to just coat, and marinate 10 minutes in the fridge, turning once — then lift every slice out onto a chilled tray and blot it, and do not leave the tuna sitting in the marinade while you work through the rest, because past 20 minutes the soy pulls water out, the surface goes matte brown and the texture turns to ham.
11. 11 Unwrap the bream, discard the kombu, and cut it the same way but 4-5 mm thick, since white fish eats chewier than tuna, to give about 16 slices. Keep all the sliced neta on a chilled tray, covered, at 8-10C/46-50F for no more than 30 minutes before forming: the contrast between cool fish and body-warm rice is the entire point of nigiri, and neta that has come to room temperature tastes flat and slightly oily.
12. 12 Grate the wasabi in small circles on a sharkskin grater (samegawa oroshi), or the finest ceramic grater you have, working from the trimmed leaf end and taking only what you need for the next few minutes; let each mound stand 2 minutes before use, since its pungency peaks around 5 minutes after grating and has largely gone by 20. Mix the tezu in a small bowl, 200 ml cold water with 30 ml rice vinegar, and set up your station: shari on the left under its damp cloth, neta tray in the middle, tezu on the right.
13. 13 Form the nigiri: wet your palms in tezu and clap once so your hands are barely damp, since wet hands make wet shari and a nigiri that slumps into a puddle within a minute. Lay a slice of neta across the top joints of your left fingers, smear a pea-sized dab of wasabi (about 0.5 g) across its centre, pick up 18 g of shari with your right hand (weigh the first five until your hand knows it) and roll it into a loose cylinder with no more pressure than you would use to hold a small bird. Set the shari on the neta, press once down the centre with your left thumb to make a shallow trough, close your right hand over the whole thing and squeeze gently from both ends, then turn it neta-side up and square the two long sides with your index and middle fingers. Finish in four movements and under 8 seconds; the piece should hold on the plate and fall apart on the tongue, and every extra squeeze takes you further from that.
14. 14 Work through the neta in this order so the flavours do not cross: 16 bream, then the 12 prawns (drained and patted dry, cut side down over the shari, tail curling up), then the 20 zuke tuna. Brush the bream and prawn pieces with a thin film of the remaining nikiri using a soft hake brush; the tuna is already seasoned and needs nothing. Serve within 10 minutes of forming, on unglazed plates or a wooden geta, with gari alongside and hot konacha — the strong powdered green tea a sushi counter calls agari — and put no soy dish on the table at all: eat with the fingers, fish side down on the tongue, bream first while the palate is clean, then prawn, then the zuke tuna last.

// CLASSIFICATIONS