Festive Salmon Chirashi Zushi
Festive Salmon Chirashi Zushi
Serves: 4-5
Chirashi zushi is a bowl of sushi rice covered with a variety of colorful sashimi (raw fish), eggs, vegetables, and other ingredients. But where I live, it is quite difficult to buy sashimi-grade fish unless I drive far. So instead, I often substitute raw fish with cooked fish (either pan fried or broiled salmon or Chilian seabass), breaking it into small pieces and mixing it with freshly cooked sushi rice. I like making chirashi zushi this way with cooked fish when I have many guests over at our house. Making nigiri or sushi rolls is fun and appreciated by guests but takes tremendous effort to serve them when I am hosting. So, this is my easy solution to host many guests by serving chirashi zushi in a large serving bowl to be shared with everyone.
For sushi toppings, I like shredded dashi eggs, nori, and lightly pickled cucumbers to be scattered over the sushi rice. But other toppings can be added to this chirashi zushi. For example, salmon roe, thinly cut shiso leaves, dried baby sardines (chirimen jako) or slowly simmered shitake mushrooms are great toppings for chirashi zushi, but non-Japanese items such as chili pepper and cilantro will also work. Create your own chirashi zushi with your favorite toppings.
There are multiple cooking steps involved in making this dish. But in general, the steps involve making sushi rice, preparing all sushi ingredients and toppings and, as a final step, mixing certain ingredients into the sushi rice and sprinkling other toppings over sushi rice. Beautifully decorated chirashi zushi will impress your guests and they will also appreciate subtly sweet vinegar notes of sushi rice with umami rich taste of salmon, fluffy dashi eggs, and freshly pickled cucumber flavors. It is just so good. Enjoy!
Ingredients:
½ pound of salmon filet
1 TBS salt
4 TBS shio koji
6 inch thinly sliced cucumber
Shredded dashi-flavored eggs (2 eggs and 1 teaspoon of dashi concentrate)
1 sheet of unflavored sushi grade nori
3 cups Japanese rice
7.5 TBS sushi vinegar
Optional:
4 shiso leaves
½ cup chirimen jako (dried baby sardines) for additional flavors.
Directions:
1. Rinse Japanese rice and drain well. Start cooking rice using a Japanese rice cooker. If your Japanese cooker has a sushi setting, add water and cook rice according to the manufacturer’s instruction. If there is no sushi setting, add slightly less water to cook the rice. Cooking with less water will allow rice to absorb sushi vinegar better without making the sushi rice too wet.
2. Wash the salmon filet and gently pat it with paper towel to remove any excess water.
3. If available, drizzle and brush shio koji onto the salmon filet. Then, sprinkle some salt to cover the entire salmon surface. Marinate the filet for about 10 minutes at room temperature. (Please note that you can still make this dish without shio koji.)
4. Wash the cucumber and thinly slice it using a mandoline, if available. Generously salt the sliced cucumbers and let it marinate for about 10 minutes. After marinating, wash off the salt on the cucumber. Using both of your hands, squeeze the cucumbers to remove any excess water and set it aside.
5. Cut the sushi grade nori into thin strips using kitchen scissors and set it aside.
6. Make shredded dashi-flavored eggs. Please refer to the unagi (eel) bowl recipe.
7. Broil or pan fry the salmon filet until the fish meat is flaky. Break the fish meat using forks or other kitchen tools like wooden sticks.
8. In a large shallow bowl, prepare the sushi rice by adding sushi vinegar to the freshly cooked rice and mixing well with a rice paddle. Be careful not to crush the rice grains.
9. Add salmon flakes to the sushi rice and mix it well.
10. Neatly sprinkle and scatter shredded dashi-flavored eggs, pickled cucumbers and thinly cut nori on top of the sushi rice.
11. Serve and help guests scoop the sushi rice onto their plates.
