How to: Sushi night at home

Sushi is known as a pretty expensive dish, especially when you want to get the proper stuff. Do you love eating sushi? Do you feel restricted because of the price? Do you not have the necessary material to roll them up nicely? Well, I have the perfect answer for you. At home we eat sushi pretty often (at least like once a month) and this is how we do it. It's super easy and MUCH MUCH cheaper than eating out! (When I did it with friends in Holland it was around 5,5euros per person and we were stuffed!).

First of all, find a fishmonger and buy salmon, tuna, coquille, shrimps, etc. Do NOT buy it at a supermarket! It's not always mega fresh and you might get sick! (I mean it might not happen necessarily, but I would say avoid it, just in case. No one wants worms in his stomach right? :/). The best is to tell your local fishmonger that you are planning to make sushi (ie. eating the fish raw) and he will tell you if it's ok or not. For the quantities, let's say 100g-150g of salmon for one person? The rest (like tuna) is quite expensive so just order less :P Once you have your fresh fish, you will have to cut it to make it as close as sashimi as you can. For this you need a nice sharp knife. This is the tricky part for me, trying to cut the salmon/tuna nicely... But just try! It can also be thinner pieces than on the photo (this was cut professionally, but just so you can have an idea!)

Tuna

Salmon

Coquille St. Jacques

Shriiiimps

Ikura (Salmon eggs)

Now for the rice... Cook some rice in your rice cooker (you need sticky rice for this so risotto rice also works). When it's ready, place it in a bowl and add rice vinegar, just enough so you can lightly smell it in the rice. Set aside until you are ready to munch.

Just looks like normal rice :P

For this sushi night at home you can also prepare some cucumber cut, avocado (all cut into stripes) and have some philadelphia cream cheese. 

When you are ready to eat, prepare the soya sauce, wasabi and only at the last moment take your nori (seaweed) out. Why only at the end? Seaweed is dry. If you leave it in open air it won't be as crispy/dry anymore, and you really don't want that. Sushi rolls in restaurants are normally prepared right when you order them. If they are made in advance the seaweed is all humid and soggy... which is how it is in those already made lunch boxes in supermarkets... Anyways, fold the seaweed paper into 4, make a little pile. Put everything on the table, and now you are ready to commence the feast!

How the table looks like when everything is ready!

How to:

Take a little bit of everything (if you like everything) rice, salmon, tuna, avocado etc. Have your soya sauce and wasabi ready nearby. First, take some seaweed and add some rice on it (not too much so you can make sure to fold it afterwards!)

My dad also added wasabi here

You can either cut your sashimi into half like on the photo or but the entire piece on it. 

Fold it as shown in the picture:

It should look like this! As you can see it's not perfectly rolled. If you are one of those people that just likes folding with the bamboo thing then this is definitely no fun for you…

Pretty easy! :P

Then dip it in soya sauce! (It's best not to put tooo much of it, just a light dip or otherwise it might be super salty)

*dip dip*

And then NOM! so yes, you can do a number of different combinations:

•  Shrimp + Japanese mayo
• Cucumber + Japanese mayo
• Salmon + avocado
• Salmon + avocado + philadelphia cream cheese
• Tuna + avocado + philadelphia
• Tuna + avocado
• Coquille 

etc, etc. 

I like this way of doing it, it's fun to do with your friends and everyone eats whatever they like! You don't have to wait to make ALL the rolls (maki) and starve on the side while preparing everything (which also takes forever). Your seaweed also doesn't have time to become all soggy from the rice. I think it's a pretty good dinner idea when you have people over (which is what we do at home) and the guests always seem to enjoy this presentation of sushi!

Hope you try it! Enjoy! 

Cream Tarako Spaghetti

One of my favorite dish of all times is Tarako spaghetti (Spaghetti with spicy pollock roe sauce). I am a huge fan of this Japanese dish and it is definitely one of my comfort food.
Usually, this sauce comes in a little pack and you just need to season your pasta with butter, and the toppings which consist of nori (seaweed) and tarako (spicy cod roe).
Recently, in the Japanese food store in West London, I found a new kind of tarako sauce called cream tarako. 

Cream tarako from a pack!

As I have not been to Japan in 15 years, I don't know much about current trends there and all the new products that come out (except those that reach Europe i.e. barely any). Anyways, trying this new sauce was a total revelation to me. I never thought that fish eggs and cream could go so well. In order to understand what I mean you really need to try tarako first. Tarako is roe (fish eggs) of cod that have been salted; when I was small I always used to think it looked like a tongue (the fish eggs come in a little sack that resembled a tongue and it was red :P). It can also be spicy which is my favorite, called karashi mentaiko. I used to munch the spicy one with my parents back in Japan during their aperitif ;)

Mentaiko: top is already 'dissected' to be able to scoop the eggs and bottom is just normal :P 

As any of the already prepared sauces are very expensive in London (around 4£ for the cream tarako and normal tarako one) I decided to make it myself. Checked a few recipes online to get inspired and decided to make my own version of it. So here it is! :)

Cream Tarako Spaghetti recipe:

Ingredients for 3 people:

• 400-450 gram of spaghetti
• Butter 
• 2 teaspoon soya sauce
• 1 teaspoon lime/lemon juice 
• 3 Mentaiko (difficult ingredient to find, you have to go to a Japanese fishmonger if possible :()
• 300 ml liquid cream 
• 1 teaspoon of mayonnaise (Japanese Kyupi Mayonnaise is advised or you can skip this)
• Seaweed (seasonning)
• Wasabi (optional)

Preparation:

1. Fill in your pot with water for the pasta. 
2. While the water boils, cut the mentaiko in half and use a spoon to scoop out the eggs and place them in a little bowl. Make sure to scrape most of it! You will be left with a transparent skin like sack; throw it out, we wont need it anymore.
3. Add lime or lemon juice to the eggs in order to get the fishy smell off and mix. Do the same with soya sauce (this is to give it some extra flavour).
4. When you see the water for the pasta is boiling, throw the pasta in and time it until they are al dente. While they are cooking, prepare another large pot (big enough to contain the cooked pasta later on) and add the cream on low heat and wait until it's warm. 
5. Before the pasta is done, stir the mentaiko one last time and add it to the cream. Stir until there are no more big clumps of eggs (at this point your cream will turn pink-ish). Add a bit of Japanese mayo at this point if you want. 
6. When the pasta is drained, add in the large pot, add some butter and coat them evenly with the creamy sauce.
7. Serve on a plate and decorate it with some seaweed and wasabi (this step is optional. Personally I like the little kick it gives and cream and wasabi go great together). You can also keep some mentaiko as decoration like I did :) 

For this recipe, I decided not to cook the eggs directly in the pot because I feel like it makes them dry. In other recipes online, I saw some where the eggs are cooked in butter and then the cream is added. It is up to you but I personally like keeping the eggs a bit raw and juicy. I find it more appetizing ;) 

Overall, not a diet friendly recipe but still very delicious. Be careful not to add too much mayonnaise since it is already very creamy!

Enjoy!

Cancale Oysters

Oyster stand 

On my trip to France, I also went to Cancale, a commune in Brittany (North West of France). 

It is known for its fresh oysters, grown and collected there. You can buy them at stands and eat them right by the sea! (Freshness guaranteed!) It is also very cheap there, costing only 50 cents to have them opened. Many people just buy them and munch them away, throwing the shell away on the sand.

Oysters munched by everyone

I could obviously not go there without eating oysters... I hadn't eaten them in about 10 years and was not sure I would like them... 

I ordered 6 of them for lunch as a starter and turns out I LOVED THEM. It was so fresh and you could really taste the salt of the ocean. For those who don't like sea food, I wouldn't recommend though... :P
You eat them with a small special fork.


They were accompanied with some sliced bread, salted butter, lemon and a shallot based vinaigrette. Some people like to eat oysters by putting the shallot or lemon juice but I was always told that it kills the real taste of the oyster. It has such a special flavor that it would be a pity to drown the poor creature in lemon juice!
As a drink, the best would be some white wine (as I did) or pour the leftover sea water from your oyster into a glass and chug it at the end (apparently very healthy)!