How To Make Sashimi – A Tasty Recipe

Japanese cuisine has thousands of good foods and delicacies with a wide range of mouth-watering recipes such as sushi, tempura, udon, natto, to name but a few. And there is a very famous traditional dish made from fresh fish, it’s sashimi. It is so elegant and delicious and you can enjoy it in modern restaurants. However, if you want to serve yourself at home (as you do not want to eat out too often), it is easy to learn how to make sashimi. It is not too time-consuming and you can have fresh and clean sashimi available in your fridge.

How To Make Sashimi – Everything You Need To Know

What Is Sashimi?

Sashimi is actually anything made from raw materials then cut into bite-sized slices. It can be any kind of raw foodstuff like vegetables, tofu, meat,…. Yet in Japan, the most popular ingredient is fresh fish: tuna or salmon.

How to make sashimi

Sashimi is actually anything made from raw materials then cut into bite-sized slices.

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Pick Out The Best Fish

So first, you need to choose the best fish for your sashimi as it is the spirit of the dish. There are many kinds of fresh fish to choose for good sashimi: tuna, salmon, kingfish, garfish,… You also can use other kinds of seafood like scallop, bream, flounder,….

It is undoubted that fresh fish is often preferred, but sometimes there are some kinds of fish that tastes better when they are left to age. As the texture and flavor of fish will change over time, there are some general rules you need to know. For smaller fish or seafood like shrimp or scallop, they are better to process as soon as they are taken from the sea. But some larger fish like snapper or flounder need to be stored in ice for a few hours overnight so that their muscle can relax and the flavor improves.

How To Prepare Sashimi

The first stage for the success of learning how to make sashimi is laying all the ingredients on the table ready for the dish.

The ingredients need preparing are:

– Fresh fish.

Some tips to choose fresh fish are: moist and shiny skin; the flesh is firm and vibrant; the odor of the sea, clear eyes, pink/red and wet gills,…

– Fresh vegetables

Raw vegetables are used to not only complement the flavor of sashimi but also to decorate the dish. A tip to have beautiful sashimi is choosing the vegetables in both red and green. Those two colors combined will definitely make the sashimi look tasty and attractive, suitable to treat the guests on special occasions or parties.

Some vegetables recommended are carrots, cucumbers, avocado, radish,…

– A sharp knife

This is very important as the sharpest knife can cut the thinnest and most beautiful slices.

– Condiments

Soy sauce, pickled ginger or wasabi shall give sashimi a bold flavor.

How To Make Sashimi

Step 1: Cut The Fish Into Thin Slices

First, place the raw fish fillet onto a clean chopping board. But next, how to cut sashimi properly?

There are two popular ways to cut sashimi fish.

The first method is called “Hira-zukuri” which means “rectangular slice”. In this method, draw the knife in a vertical direction cut the fish fillet down towards the chopping board. Then you will have thin and beautiful slices with a thickness of approximately 0.6 – 1.7 cm. This slicing technique is suitable for salmon or tuna.

The second method is Usu-zukuri which means “thin slice”. You will cut the fish fillet in the horizontal stroke. This technique creates extremely thin slices so it is usually used for cutting fish like flounder or bream.

No matter what, the aim of all techniques is to create slices with the same thickness. This is not easy to practice regularly to master it.

This video will give you the insight of cutting fish fillet.

Step 2: Arrange The Slices In An Overlapping Row

This step is to make the sashimi dish look neat and professional.

Step 3: Shred Or Cut The Vegetables

There are many ways to decorate sashimi.

If you shred the cucumber or the carrot, place one pile of each kind on the plate next to the fish. Or you can cut them into thin slices, and then also arrange them in an overlapping row next to the fish slices.

Step 4: Add Some Condiments

Finally, add some ginger and a bowl of wasabi or soy sauce next to the plate and enjoy your sashimi

Final Words

Learning how to make sashimi at home has now become easier with this simple recipe. Try it now and invite some of your friends and relatives to enjoy!

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About Haruto Suzuki

Haruto Suzuki is a senior food and drinks blogger at Question Japan. He has a background in F&B industry and also experience of running his own Japanese restaurant in Tokyo for over 10 years. Therefore, he has a great knowledge of Japanese cuisine. So if you want to discover Japan through its unique traditional cuisine, Haruto Suzuki’s blog will be a great source of information for you.

5/5 - (4 votes)

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