Negitoro Sushi
Negitoro (Fatty Tuna with Green Onion)
Made in Gunkan Maki Sushi Style
Serves: 2 (makes about 20-25 pieces)
I often make Negitoro sushi at home whenever I can source fresh sushi-grade tuna at a Japanese grocery store. Negitoro is fun to make and can be served on top of freshly cooked rice or sushi rice. If you are hosting a home party, Negitoro can be made in a Gunkan Maki style, which is a one-bite size sushi roll, that can be served as an appetizer. The name Gunkan Maki in Japanese is derived from its oval-shaped sushi wrapped around with a strip of black nori that resembles a battleship. This dish pairs well with a glass of Champagne or sake.
Ingredients:
2 cups Japanese rice
A small bowl of water to shape and mold cooked rice
5 TBS sushi vinegar
10-12 ounces of sushi-grade Tuna, toro (fatty tuna) is preferred.
2-3 stalks of green onion
5 sheets of unflavored dried seaweed (nori)
2 TBS soy sauce
Salt
Optional: For the mixing sauce, you may add a small portion of wasabi and/or sesame oil to soy sauce to spice up and enrich the tuna flavor. Olive oil can be added in lieu of sesame oil.
Directions:
Making Negitoro
1. Wash the green onions thoroughly. Remove the bulbs from green onions and chop them finely into small pieces. (Optional: As an added step, to make chopped onion taste more mild and less slimy, soak them in a bowl of water for a couple of minutes. Using a cheesecloth or paper towel, squeeze the green onions well to remove the excess water. But this step is not necessary if you like the pungent flavor of green onion).
2. Lightly sprinkle tuna with salt and leave it for a few minutes. Wash tuna quickly and dry it off with a paper towel. First, dice the tuna into small pieces, and then using a dull edge of your knife blade, pound and grind the tuna to make a rough paste.
3. After making the tuna paste, add and mix chopped green onions and your preferred soy sauce mixture with wasabi, sesame oil, olive oil, etc.
4. Now, Negitoro is made. Place it in the refrigerator until the Gunkan Maki base is made.
Preparing Gunkan Maki Base
1. Cook Japanese rice in a rice cooker.
2. Using a pair of cooking scissors, cut the nori sheets into 4 long strips (about 7 X 2 inches).
3. Add and mix sushi vinegar to freshly cooked rice and let it cool to a lukewarm temperature. Please do not let the rice cool off completely as it would make it difficult to shape the rice balls.
4. Applying the same rice ball making method, moisten your hands with a bowl of water. Next, clap your hands to eliminate any excess water on your hands. It is important to keep your hands moist throughout this process. Rice will stick to your hands if your hands are not sufficiently moist enough. Please note that the rice in this recipe is flavored already with sushi vinegar; therefore, there is no need to add salt on your hands as in the case of making onigiri. Repeat this process each time you make one piece of rice ball.
5. Make about 20-25 pieces of one bite-size oval shape rice balls. Each piece should weigh about 0.8 to 1 oz.
6. Wrap these rice balls with a strip of nori. If you place the wrapped sushi pieces connected in a line, nori will stick well to the rice balls from the heat and moist from the sushi rice.
7. Top off the Gunkan Maki base with Negitoro as a final step.
8. Now it is ready to be served. Enjoy!
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Optional: If you want to be fancy and decorative, you may add other ingredients such as sesame seeds, sea urchin, caviar, salmon roes, thinly sliced avocados or cucumbers, baby leaves like arugula and kale, etc.
Note: After learning how to make Gunkan Maki base, the choice of main ingredients is endless. For example, canned tuna fillings used in the onigiri recipe can be incorporated in this recipe instead of Negitoro. Enjoy being creative and make your own unique Gunkan Maki Sushi!
