Chirashi-zushi
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Chirashi-zushi

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cooking

How many different types of sushi can you name? There are many kinds, such as nigiri-zushi, inari-zushi, saba-zushi, kakinoha-zushi, masu-zushi, chirashi-zushi, maki-zushi, hako-zushi and more. The most popular one around the world is probably nigiri-suzhi. Nigiri needs skills, and we don't make it at home. Maki-zuhi, inari-zushi and chirashi-zushi are the best ones for homemade sushi in Japan.

Today, I'd love to write about chirashi-zushi. In the Kansai region (Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo, Shiga, Wakayama, Nara), it's often called gomoku-zushi or bara-zushi.

Chirashi is easy to make. You simmer some chopped vegetables with dashi (Japanese fish stock), mirin (cooking sake), sugar, soy sauce, and salt. Then, you mix the vegetables into sushi rice. That's it. It's simple and delicious, so I often make it.

Since I took step-by-step photos as usual, I'd love to share them with you. If you try to make the sushi at home, I hope my photos will help you.

For this recipe, I used some dried ingredients, such as koya-dofu (dried tofu), my homemade dried mushrooms, and dried young sardines. Dried mushrooms are excellent for making Japanese food, so if you can't find them at a store, I highly recommend trying to make your own. You can refer to my post: How to make dried mushroom.

The picture below shows lotus root called renkon in Japanese. I love using this for my homemade sushi.

Simmer chopped vegetables with dashi, mirin, say sauce, sugar, and salt.

Green pea is a common ingredient, so I guess it's easy to find.

After shelling the peas, boil them.

The picture below shows kamaboko (a type of fish cake), which maybe hard to find outside Japan.

If you can find snow peas, they are also good for this type of sushi. After boiling them, slice them.

The snow peas, the boiled lotus root and the boiled egg are used for topping.

To make the sushi rice, mix rice vinegar, sugar and salt in a 2:1:1 ratio (per one cup of rice) and stair it into the cocked rice with the simmered vegetables.

Add more ingredients like dried young sardines, boiled green peas and kamaboko (fish paste).

Arrange the egg, the lotus root and the snow peas on the top.

If you like dried seaweed, sprinkle some on top as a final touch. It looks delicious! Itadakimasu (Let's eat)!!

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