Classic Nigiri Recipe

Making hand-molded sushi (nigirizushi) is left to professionals in Japan. To put together one piece of sushi there are from fourteen to eighteen steps sighted. While making sushi to rival Japan's finest restaurants' is out of the question (without many years of training), it's not impossible for a beginner to make acceptable nigirizushi. The steps can be simplified and whittled down to four.
Nigirizushi shari
ingredients to place on top of rice (generally termed neta)
wasabi

1) To prevent the shari from sticking to your hands moisten with a little bit a water, and keep water on hand to re-moisten.
2) Place neta on the fingers of your left hand and wipe a bit of wasabi on the underside.
3) Take a small ball of shari in your right hand and roughly shape it. Transferring it onto the neta in your left hand, light press together.
4) Place the nigiri back into your right hand, shari side down, and finish shaping, taking care not to mash the rice together.

Common neta

Raw fish
bonito (katsuo)
fatty tuna (toro)
flounder (hirame)
mackerel (saba)
salmon (shake or sake)
sea bass (suzuki)
sea bream (tai)
squid (ika)
sweet shrimp (ama ebi)
tuna (maguro)
yellowtail (buri)

Cooked fish
conger eel (anago)
eel (unagi)
octopus (tako)
prawn (ebi)

Others
rolled egg (tamago yaki)
Japanese pickles (tsukemono)

Kappamaki

Tekkamaki

Negitoromaki

Classic Nigiri Recipe

Recipe for Chirashi Sushi

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