Sushi masters, or taisho, take great pride in their work, treating sushi-making almost like an art after decades of training; thus, it’s essential to know the different manners involved in eating sushi and making the most out of the delicious experience. Table of contents Sushi is a food representative of Japan and there are quite few different forms of it. Nigirizushi (握り寿司, hand-pressed sushi), c hirashizushi (ちらし寿司, scattered sushi), and oshizushi (押し寿司, pressed sushi) to name a few. But I think that temakizushi is best suited for serving a crowd, particularly with your family and friends. There are good reasons for this: Over the years, nare-zushi evolved according to each region’s specialities; in Osaka, oshi-zushi became popular, while Shiga is still renowned for its funa-zushi from Lake Biwa. There are quiet, local beaches and heaving popular ones; gentle coves for families and reef breaks for surfers. Peak summer is July and August, when many beaches have temporary huts, festivals, and firework displays. Note that the Japanese sun is strong! Many locals wear hats or hide under beach umbrellas.

The aburaage comes in two vacuum sealed bags. Each bag contains 8 cooked aburaage pouches. If the bag is still vacuum sealed, it keeps quite a while and there is no need to refrigerate it. But once opened, you should keep it in the fridge and use it in few days.The modern version of Inarizushi is more decorative with colourful toppings, as you can see some of them in my photos.

When the rice is cooked, you need to add sushi vinegar and mix. Sushi vinegar is called sushisu (寿司酢) and can be made from rice wine vinegar and sugar and salt. Please refer to the post Japanese Dressings. You can also buy a bottle of sushi vinegar from the supermarket and Asian grocery stores. Don’t get it mixed up with rice wine vinegar. Sushi vinegar should be sweet.I did not include flavoured grilled eel, tuna belly and hikiwari nattō (finely chopped fermented soya beans) which are also in the photo because they are not commonly consumed. But if you are interested, you could buy a frozen version of these at Japanese grocery stores. Hikiwari nattō will need to be mixed with finely chopped shallots (scallions). For the Inarizushi with toppings, I made cooked prawns with diced avocado and seasoned pork mince (ground pork) with Iri Tamago (finely scrambled egg). You can find how to cook seasoned mince (ground meat) and Iri Tamago in my post, Sanshoku Bento (Tri-coloured Rice Bowl). Side dish 1: Octopus and Cucumber Sunomono (Vinegar Dressing) – alternatively, Cucumber and Seaweed Sunomono Make the sushi rice as per my recipe, Temakizushi (Hand Rolled Sushi). Since Inari Sushi does not contain raw fish, the sushi rice does not have to be completely cooled down. It can be slightly warm if you are in a hurry.

You can roll almost anything when it comes to temakizushi. Traditional ingredients are those similar to nigirizushi, i.e. raw fish such as tuna and kingfish, cooked prawns (shrimps), dashimaki tamago (Japanese rolled omelette), and cucumber. The quantity of ingredients is approximate as it all depends on how much people can eat and how much rice vs ingredients people use to make temakizushi. I always wonder why they add “mum” at the end, expecting me to get everything ready. But now that I am posting temakizushi, they can prepare it and I can be invited for a change. About sushi riceMost Asian and Japanese grocery stores also sell the Japanese brand short grain rice, e.g. Koshihikari. See the sample bag of Koshihikari rice in my post, How to Cook Rice the Japanese Way.