"school of fish" news and stories

Remember last year, or maybe it was even two years ago, when I did an "occasional" series called School of Fish wherein I waxed poetically about everything from anago (sea eel) to tamago (sweet egg omelet)? Were you were paying attention?

Well, now's a good time to test yourself! Jonesblog has put together a lovely post full of pictures of various types of sushi. It's not super-detailed, but the pictures are pretty and the descriptions are good enough to help you order when you sidle up to the bar.

Every once in a while, I get a little crazy at the sushi bar and order a roll. I know, it's absolutely insane, isn't it? However, the big, fat, "creative" rolls that are stuffed with the entire refrigerated case of sushi are a little much for me. Salmon skin will do just fine.

"Salmon skin" certainly doesn't sound all too appetizing, but the salty, smoky crispness that is a result of a few minutes in the chefs' toaster oven is absolutely delicious. It's nothing at all like the slimy, fatty texture that one would expect from raw fish skin. Some restaurants deep fry the salmon skin instead of roasting it.

If you're cooking salmon at home, it's be worthwhile to trim the skin and save it to prepare salmon skin in the same way. Food and Wine has a recipe based on the salmon skin roll at Bar Masa in New York.

Previous lessons at the School of Fish:
Saba - holy mackerel!
Hirame - white fish, sometimes halibut
Tai and Suzuki - snapper and sea bass
Maguro - tuna
Toro - fatty belly of tuna
Shiro Maguro - "white" tuna, aka albacore
Ahi tuna
Hamachi - amberjack, aka yellowtail
Sake - salmon
Gai - the bivalves, i.e.clams, scallops, and oysters
Ebi - shrimp
Ika and Tako - squid and octopus
Kani - crab
Masago and tobiko - roe, roe, roe your boat
Ikura - salmon roe
Uni - sea urchin (but not roe!)
Anago and Unagi - not just eel

I'm not shy about my opinions on sushi rolls. I don't hate rolls. I just happen to have a personal preference for sashimi and some nigiri sushi, that's all. The fact that most rolls are overly-pumped with ridiculous ingredients, some of which have no place at all in sushi (steak and cream cheese?!?), are accessorized with strangely sweet, creamy, unidentifiable sauces, and are accordingly named WWF things like "Godzilla" and "Monster Crunch" has nothing to do with it at all. Really.

However, there are a few rolls that I really do like. While I do understand that many people simply adore the California roll, especially ones that are made with real kani, I am not a huge fan. However, I love the spicy tuna roll. The thing about spicy tuna is that it isn't even "spiced" with something like wasabi or togarashi. Most sushi bars I've seen use the little green tipped bottle of chili sauce - sriracha. When I see that, I ask the chef to add a little more to the tuna bits to make it extra spicy.

Once, I had a spicy tuna roll that had a little bit ofmayo mixed in with the tuna and spice. I didn't like that one too much.

We've been making our tour around the sushi bar these days, covering different kinds of fish. Though most of us adore the silky smooth raw fish, let's not forget that the word "sushi" actually refers to the sweet, vinegared rice. It's not about the fish (that's technically, but I too, would cry a Pacific Ocean if I had to eat sushi without the fish).

Since it's not just about the fish, that means there are some vegetarian-ish options available at the sushi bar. I learned all about these, as well as the "cooked" fish in sushi during my sister's pregnancy. One of the most common non-fish options is tamago, which is a sweetened egg omelet. The omelet is cut into the same shape and size as sushi fish, and placed on the rice.

We've already talked about cucumber rolls, kappa maki, in a previous post. However, the use of vegetables in rolls doesn't stop there. A sushi chef can basically make a roll with any one or combination of vegetables, though it seems the big three are asparagus, cucumber, avocado. However, I have also seen more interesting vegetables. Kanpyo is dried gourd, shiso are the leaves that look like large mint leaves (often used for garnish as well), and ume, a Japanese plum that is sometimes pickled or salted.

We're done with fish and nigiri sushi (at least, until I come across some incredible lesser known fish at a sushi bar), so we move on to maki sushi - the rolls. Today is not the day that I will rant about the super-human creative behemoths that Japanese restaurants pass off as sushi.

Today it's just two very simple rolls that are the distant ancestors of the mutants. They are rolled tightly, and are small enough that each piece requires one bite. Tekka maki is a tuna roll. It's just nori, rice, tuna, and sometimes a faint smear of wasabi inside. Kappa maki is a cucumber roll, pure and simply refreshing.

Please, don't ask me about the California roll. The California roll is the true godfather to all those rolls I hate. But I won't talk about that now. I might start throwing things.