.....................Tools Used in Modern Japanses Cooking.......
There is a saying that “Japanese eat with their eyes” hence, in addiiton to requiring a high quality of ingredients, Japanese chefs pay huge attention to presentation. Two popular dishes made from Rice such as Koshihikari are Sushi and Onigiri. Sushi is an appetizer which is made from rice such as Koshi to which Mirin, salt, sugar and rice vinegar is added. Sushi can be stuffed with a variety of ingredients such as vegetables, seafood, meats and sometimes, fruits. It’s most popular shape is a cylinder which was traditionally made with a bamboo mat by a skilled chef. The cylinder is then covered with a sheet of Seeweed called Nori and then cut into pieces Onigiri or rice ball is made from rice which is usually labeled as Sushi Rice or Japanese Rice, Koshi is one of the best examples of this. Onigiri was traditionally made in geometrical shapes such as spheres, cylinders, triangles, rectangles etc and sometimes wrapped in nori (seaweed). Onigiri is usually filled with salty fish, pickles and vegetables. Unlike Sushi, the rice in Onigiri does not have Vinegar or Mirin added to it. Onigiri were shaped by the hands of skilled Chef’s. Today, tools are available using which we can all make good looking and good tasting Sushi and Onigiri. We do not sell the tools desctibed here but they can easily be bought on-line from stores such as ebay.com and aliexpress.com.
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A step-by-step illustration of how Sushi was made traditionally is illustrated below. Click on the thumbnail image below to get a full size illustration
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Sushi Mold Sets, such as the one shown below, can be used to easily make Sushi without using a Bamboo Mat
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The process by which triangular Onigiri was originally made can be seen below
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You can now easily make Onigiri in exciting shapes such as, Bears, cylinders, mini rolls, Panda's and Penguins, to name just a few with inexpensive molds which can be bought on-line from various stores such as ebay and aliexpress
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