Graham and I decided to do a one day sushi course together. I could then decide if I wanted to do the 1 month diploma course. I have decided yes!!
Before I explain about the day course I want to express how impressed I am of the sushi of my good friend Maja in Switzerland. Her sushi is fabulous, it always looks great and tastes delicious, after doing the one day course I have realised just how hard this is, it really isn't easy! http://www.sushichezvous.ch/ Also I want to say that Maja's sushi is up there with the sushi we have had in Japan! totally excellent!! (Maja you can pay me later) :-)
OK... our course, Graham and I turned up at 10am to the Sushi Academy, Tokyo. After being asked to change our shoes, put on the white apron and hat, wash our hands and take off all rings, watches etc we were ready. They had the rice all prepared and we were shown how to take the rice and mold it for the nigri sushi, looks easy, just roll no?? NO! In Japan they teach you how to do this in 7 steps, of course our "sensei" did this in seconds (1 I think) but Gra and I took abit longer and it didn't look the same as his. We had to weigh it too as in Japan the rice has to weigh exactly 18g... OK we were making 25g :-) we practiced this for quite a while, chatting to the sensei and the assistant (Gra to the sensei in Japanese and me to the assistant in English). Then he said we could try to cut some fish, even that isn't straight forward, holding the knife in a certain way, slicing (no sawing) the fish etc, again it has to be weighed and has to weigh 12g, maybe Gra and I were not exact with this either...
We then watched how they made the rice which again was a very interesting process and not just put the rice in a pan and cook for 20 mins...
After this was on to making the cucumber rolls, for this they didn't even let us near the real ingredients to start with, we had a cloth for the Nori and chop sticks for the cucumber.. we made a right mess and the sensei had a good laugh, after he said we were ready to make these so we made 1 roll and cut into 6 and then were given fresh rice and we made the nigri sushi with the different fish. After this we had to present it nicely and then we all ate it for lunch, my was "gorgeous" :-)
We watched the Diploma course for a while as they were being shown how to make the omelet it looked really hard so I wished the American and Swedish guy good luck with making that :-) my turn in November.... cant wait!!!
Cool!
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