Five Triangle chefs share their secrets for sushi at home

Making sushi at home can seem quite intimidating. You may think you have to buy several varieties of fish, appropriate vegetables and accompanying spices and seeds. You need to cook rice with the right consistency and texture. And you need to have the techniques and tools required to put it all together. 

But, according to four Triangle chefs and one fish supplier, it doesn't have to be so mystifying or demanding, so long as you know what you're shopping for and what you already have. These how-to tips should make your next home sushi experience tastier and a little more homemade.

Perfecting your rice

In sushi, there is no ingredient more important than rice. The name "sushi" even refers to the type of rice used to make a vast array of rolls, plus the pillows used to support glistening strips of seafood in nigiri.

Mike Lee, of Raleigh's Sono and Durham's M Sushi, expected to open downtown this week, says it is essential to use the best available rice—the "super premium" varieties koshihikari or tamanishiki. Available at select Asian markets in the Triangle, they are prized for their inherently sweet, slightly nutty flavor and starchiness. And if you find bags marked "new crop," consider yourself a winner of the sushi Powerball. If you can't find those varieties, says Lee, go for the best Japanese or Korean brands you can find.

"It's sad to see that a lot of sushi restaurants in the area don't pay attention to how important the rice is," says Lee, whose staff makes several 50-cup batches throughout lunch and dinner service. Rice will vary from bag to bag, even in the same brand, based on when it was grown and how long it's been stored. He makes a test batch with every new bag to ensure quality and gauge cooking time.

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• Indy Week illustrations by Chris Williams

According to Lee, rice should be rinsed well enough before cooking that water will run clear through it in a colander.

A heavy-bottom pot with a tight lid, like a Dutch oven, is ideal for cooking rice. If you lack patience to watch the pot boil, Lee recommends investing in a high-quality electric rice cooker. (Again, go with a Japanese or Korean brand.) When the rice is done cooking, transfer it to a wide, shallow bowl; wood is ideal, but start with what you've got.

"You have to mix in the seasoned vinegar right away, while it's piping hot," says Lee, who uses a dimpled, paddle-shaped spatula to cut in the vinegar and coat all the grains. "Then you want to cool it down quickly so the excess moisture is controlled. A piece of cardboard works great."

The seasoned rice wine vinegar sold at most grocery stores and even some Asian markets is, like its balsamic counterparts, not authentic. Lee considers most brands a poor substitute for a recipe you can do yourself. The basic ratio is 3 parts rice wine vinegar to 1 part sugar and one-half part salt—or 6 tablespoons rice wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons sugar and 1 tablespoon salt. Tweak this depending on how sweet you like your rice or if you'd like to add kombu (edible kelp), umami or citrus.

"As long as you keep it close to the basic ratio," Lee says, "you can be as creative as you like."

Pickling your own ginger

When Charlie Deal of Durham's Jujube wants sushi, he heads to his favorite "hidden gem" in the city, Kurama. "It's the last place you'd expect, because it looks like a dated Japanese steak house," Deal says. "But the sushi there is impeccable, especially if you let the guy do his thing."

Though Deal doesn't attempt sushi at Jujube, some of the dishes do come with pickled ginger. He encourages home cooks to dispense with the prepackaged pink stuff and make their own.

"I've always seen pickled ginger being made from young ginger, which I can't always find," says Deal, who was initially skeptical when chef Miguel Gordillo made it with mature ginger. But it worked. "It's delicious, and it's even got a nice texture."

Young ginger can be pickled by just soaking in hot brine. Mature ginger, however, needs to be simmered in brine. Here's how they do it at Jujube.

INGREDIENTS

150 grams ginger, peeled and thinly sliced, preferably with a mandoline
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt3/4 cup mirin3/4 cup rice wine vinegar4 tablespoons white sugar

Combine everything in a heavy-bottom saucepan and simmer uncovered for 45 minutes. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Transfer ginger and remaining brine to a sealable container.

Grating your Wasabi

Early in his kitchen career, a boss tasked Greg Gettles with turning harsh wasabi powder into the thick green paste served with sushi.

"I cried," admits Gettles, now the executive chef at Piedmont in Durham. "It'll light you up for sure. That's why it was such a big deal to me to taste real wasabi for the first time."

Fresh wasabi root looks similar to horseradish but has a vibrant green tint. It's not as hot as wasabi made from powder, which often contains no real wasabi at all.

"There's a surprising sweetness to freshly grated wasabi," Gettles says. "And it should be used soon after you grate it. If you wait until the next day, the flavor will be super muted."

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Gettles recommends buying wasabi from an Asian market where produce is frequently replenished. Such stores often sell ceramic or sharkskin boards for grating it traditionally, but a Microplane is just as effective.

Still, if the fresh wasabi is a bit more assertive than you like, Gettles suggests taming it with a dash of mirin, or sweetened rice wine.

While he has not served sushi at Piedmont, Gettles has used wasabi to brighten a classic beurre monté, a melted butter sauce. "Finishing it with a little wasabi adds depth," he explains. "Wasabi also pairs nicely with cilantro, so it's great in something like a cucumber gazpacho."

While the plant does not thrive in the Southern climate (or many at all, really), Gettles plans to use locally grown wasabi microgreens in salads this spring and, hopefully, larger leaves later as a wrapper for steamed fish.

"I've got a couple of small farmers set to grow leaves for me," he says. "I've never tried this, but I think the flavor will be unreal."

Picking your fish

Consider yourself warned: Eating raw seafood can cause food-borne illness.

"There's a lot of misinformation out there, and I like to be clear," says Lin Peterson of Raleigh's Locals Seafood, which provides fresh catches for Triangle chefs and home cooks alike. "Just as with raw oysters, there is an inherent risk in eating raw fish in sushi."

Peterson says 99 percent of fish served in sushi restaurants has been frozen to ­-40 degrees Fahrenheit, not only for convenient transport but also to kill potentially harmful bacteria. This is even required by some state and local health departments.

"And there is no such thing as 'sushi grade' fish," he says. "We sell fresh fish, and we know exactly where it came from, when it left the water, when it was cut and when it was sold."

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If you don't buy your fish from a seller who can vouch for such stock, chances are you should not experiment with uncooked seafood in your homemade sashimi or rolls. If you do, Peterson offers a few tips.

First, choose a whole fish, like black sea bass or Spanish mackerel, instead of a trimmed fillet, which begins to break down as soon as it's exposed to air.

"Grouper and snapper can work, as well as triggerfish and tilefish," Peterson says. "If you like tuna, look for a section of big-eye or yellowfin, which are running now. They have a nice fat content, which makes for great flavor."

Second, keep the fish super cold, preferably on ice. And then, use your best, sharpest knife to cut thin, even slices.

For garnish, Peterson suggests golden rainbow trout caviar from Sunburst Trout Farms, located in the mountain town of Canton, instead of the salty orange beads of salmon roe.

Rolling your leftovers

Freaked out about raw fish? Stop fretting and do what Gray Brooks does: Make sushi rolls at home using leftover proteins, like those last few bites of a great steak.

"When you're eating a steak as sushi, you can stretch what would normally be a snack into a whole portion of dinner," says the Pizzeria Toro chef. "And it's delicious."

Brooks likes making steak sushi for other reasons, too.

"I don't have special sushi knives, and I don't want to have to buy four or five different kinds of fish," he says. "This is just so much easier."

It's best to slice leftover steak straight from the refrigerator, when it's cold and firm. To ensure a tender bite, cut across the grain.

Brooks likes to have an avocado on hand for his steak sushi. Otherwise, he can be spontaneous about making the rolls because he keeps a stash of essentials in his pantry—rice and seasoned rice wine vinegar, mirin, sheets of nori and togarashi, a seven-flavor Japanese chili sauce. He also reserves a bottle of especially good soy sauce for dipping.

"It really is worth spending a little more money to get a high-end soy sauce," he says. "The subtleties are amazing."

This post first appeared in Indy Week.

Carolina Crossroads Chef James Clark specializes in obscure fish

Chef James Clark's rose-dotted snapper, served
on a bed of stone-ground grits and dressed
in a sauce of minced ramps flambéd in Pernod.
© Photo by  DL Anderson

This story was first published in INDY Week.

Pity the jolthead porgy. Related to the grunt, it is among the many oddly named fish that, like awkward schoolchildren hoping to get picked for the dodgeball team, watches as its glamorous cousins such as grouper are selected for discerning customers at top restaurants.

But that's not how it works at Carolina Crossroads, the elegant dining room of the historic Carolina Inn at Chapel Hill. Though Chef James Clark has been cooking there less than a year, he has established a reputation for seeking out lesser-known but equally delicious and sustainable varieties that fishermen pull from the waters of the Carolina coast.

"My favorite is line-caught scorpion fish. They've got this hideous face with knobs," he says, demonstrating with a waggle of his large hands near his ears. "Most people won't give them a second glance, but I'm telling you, it's the best–tasting fish in the world."

Like most of the seafood Clark fixes in battered, nonstick pans in the restaurant's large kitchen, scorpion fish—when he's lucky enough to find some—get a slow sauté in light oil and are finished with a scoop of butter. "It cooks like oysters with this sweet cucumber flavor," Clark says with a dreamy look and a quick pursing of his lips, as if to catch the last drop of the memory's succulence. "Really, if you ever see it on a menu or in a market, you must try it."

It takes a brave man to sell fish with funky names to the affluent diners who frequent Carolina Crossroads, but Clark backs up his bravado by preparing unfamiliar eats in classic combinations. The jolthead porgy, for example, is finished in browned butter and served atop a generous smear of celery root purée. Clark adds an aromatic sauté of asparagus and oyster mushrooms, then garnishes the dish with a pearly dab of caramelized onion vinaigrette.

"People won't necessarily drive here thinking, 'Ooh, I hope they have jolthead porgy tonight,'" he says, wiping the edge of the plate to enhance its presentation. "But I don't think anyone who really enjoys fish would mind being served this."

The day Clark drove to Chapel Hill from Myrtle Beach for his cooking interview, he brought jolthead porgy, triggerfish and lane snapper—all procured from Wayne Mershon at Kenyon Seafood in Murrells Inlet, S.C. He had 11 hours to prepare seven dishes for eight people. Among them was a flight of ceviches, though he grew uncertain as to whether a trio of lime-cured raw fish was a smart idea.

"Thank god, it was their favorite course," Clark recalls. "It really built my confidence. I want to use underutilized fish every day. That's my shtick."

He now orders fish through Dock to Door Seafood of Chapel Hill, a wholesale distributor that provides the catch of the day to several top local restaurants. For those wanting to incorporate more under-appreciated fish at home, he recommends developing a relationship with an independent fishmonger or shopping at a well-stocked market with knowledgeable staff.

"The most important consideration when buying any type of fish is freshness," Clark says, urging customers to ask questions and even request a sniff before committing to a purchase. "These are people who genuinely care about what they're doing, and they'll be honest. When you understand more about fish, you're more likely to buy it often."

Inland markets and fine dining establishments are increasingly offering varieties that only a few years ago were considered unsellable outside of the coastal communities where they were caught. This includes versatile triggerfish, which award-winning cookbook author James Peterson heartily recommends ("snatch it up right away") in his encyclopedic Fish & Shellfish; red drum (think of Paul Prudhomme's once-ubiquitous blackened red fish); amberjack; and sustainable varieties of snapper.

Clark recently used rose-spotted snapper to demonstrate a dish for INDY Week. After seasoning lightly with salt and freshly ground pepper, he says to always start cooking "presentation side" down—which in his book means skin-side down. Clark does not slash the thin skin of the snapper, though doing so with other fish may help to prevent it from curling while cooking. Instead, he lightly presses down on the flesh with a wide spoon to keep it flat.

"Please, don't fry a beautiful piece of fish like this," Clark implores as he angles the pan to quickly scoop up foaming butter for basting. "You want to cook slowly on medium heat, which will give you crisp skin and moist flesh. No one wants to eat rubbery fish."

Clark finely minces some boiled ramps and red onion, which he then cooks over a low flame in a small skillet. He dramatically pours in a glug of anise-flavored Pernod to flambé the ingredients, plunking in a great scoop of butter as the flames subside. Noticing how observers were agog at the amount of butter and booze, Clark chuckles. "It's not healthy to eat like this every day," he concedes, "but it's good and it's good for you."

Served on a base of stone-ground grits, the sauced snapper looked a lot like a T-bone. "It's true of a lot of fish," he says. "If you were blindfolded and touched cooked triggerfish, you'd swear it was filet mignon. If I could get more people who eat steak and pork and chicken to just try fish, I know I'd sell a whole lot more of it."

Customers who appreciate his finesse with fish already have forced Clark to make big changes in the way he orders supplies. When he took over the kitchen, fish dishes accounted for about 25 percent of dinner sales. Today, it's about 55 percent.

So how does one sell a grunt to a first-timer? "Some people see these fish on the menu and think they've walked into Iron Chef, but it's not like that," Clark says. "It's all about educating your wait staff. Once they've tasted it, trust me, it's an easy sell."

Outer Banks Cookbook shows how to fix fish without fretting

This post first appeared in Indy Week on Jan. 30.

As a farmer's daughter, Elizabeth Wiegand takes special pleasure in the growing support for the farm-to-fork movement. She especially appreciates recognition of the considerable effort it takes for farmers to make it easier for consumers to enjoy fresh, locally grown vegetables and humanely raised meats.

She's doing her bit to turn the tide in one area that has not caught on with comparable fervor: a boat-to-table wave to celebrate seafood harvested from both the fresh and salt waters that lap our state's shores.

"Even if they know it comes from a very reliable source, some people just don't buy fish because they are intimidated by how to cook it," Wiegand says from the spacious kitchen of her North Raleigh home. "They're convinced it will smell or taste 'fishy.' Or they think it's way too difficult to make a restaurant- quality meal at home."

With the new second edition of her Outer Banks Cookbook: Recipes & Traditions from North Carolina's Barrier Islands, Wiegand is on a mission to prove that fresh fish can be as easy to fix as a grilled steak—or as complex as a great coq au vin. She's spreading the gospel on behalf of some of the most creative chefs on the Outer Banks, as well as home cooks who remember how, before good roads and ferries, they made do with what was caught or grown in their community.

Wiegand counts the region's hardworking fisherman among her heroes because they endure long days and difficult environmental and economic challenges to provide their bounty to top restaurants up and down the East Coast. Increasingly, they're also working with partners to hustle their daily catch inland to a growing number of Triangle markets and community-supported fisheries.

"Eighty percent of the seafood we consume in the U.S. is imported. That is sad and outrageous to me," Wiegand says. "With the wonderful resources we have in North Carolina, there's just no reason to eat fish that's not from here. Well, unless you really crave salmon."

As with the first edition of her book, Wiegand spent many weeks on the coast conducting painstaking research—in other words, sampling exceptional food with her longtime friend and guide Della Basnight, to whom the book is dedicated. Wiegand includes the legendary Hatteras Clam Chowder served at the Basnight family's Lone Cedar Cafe in Nags Head. The recipe traces back five generations to matriarch Dolly Midgett, who was born in 1826 on Hatteras Island.

"I'd have to force myself to go back time and again, listen to all their stories and eat all that great food along the Banks," Wiegand jokes, adding that locals never call their home the Outer Banks. "If you really want to break my heart, make me go back tomorrow."

Wiegand's love affair with the Banks began as a newlywed. The couple spent six weeks at the coast thanks to her husband's family, who owned a beach house.

"Steve loves to fish, and I had to learn how to deal with whatever he brought in," Wiegand says. "My rule was that if he caught it, he cleaned it. I love to cook, but I don't clean fish."

An intuitive cook and a writer who excels at sharing the stories of her subjects, Wiegand sought formal training to boost her abilities and appreciation of fine cooking. She studied in France at the acclaimed L'Academie de Cuisine and Ecole de Cuisine LaVarenne, the same place where Southern foods connoisseur Virginia Willis honed her skills.

Wiegand spent weeks focusing on classic French cooking techniques before she experienced a textbook light-bulb moment. "The chef taught us how to make crème anglaise," she says of the delicate dessert cream. "I thought to myself, it's just boiled custard. What am I doing here? We have great food in North Carolina."

Wiegand returned home with a new sense of purpose. She attended major food conferences with the goal of writing a cookbook. At one, she was fortunate to meet the legendary Julia Child, who bolstered her dream with advice to "write about what I know and feature the great foods of my own experience."

After receiving several rejections for a book proposal to comprehensively document North Carolina's diverse culinary traditions, Wiegand was accepted by Globe Pequot Press, which produced the first edition of the Outer Banks Cookbook in 2008.

"They told me to start at the coast and, if it was successful, to do the mountains next," says Wiegand, who did just that in 2010 with The New Blue Ridge Cookbook. "It was a very different terroir, but the chefs and cooks really weren't that different in their approaches.

"Back in the day, it was just as hard to get to town and they had to use what they had," she adds. "They all had great stories about how they honor the local resources."

While she enjoyed her exploration, Wiegand says North Carolina's coast serves as a "salve to my soul." She is putting the final touches on The Food Lovers' Guide to the Outer Banks, a new resource scheduled for May release.

Wiegand is toying with the idea of a Piedmont-based cookbook and one on seasonal cooking in the South. But first, she needs a break.

"I really enjoy seeing great chefs make use of local ingredients, but if I'm not working on a project I'm just as happy staying home and eating in," she says. "If you asked my husband, he'd say, 'Why go out?' Especially if you can get a really nice piece of fish, you can make a great dinner at home."

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Recipes printed by permission of Elizabeth Wiegand from The Outer Banks Cookbook, Recipes & Traditions from North Carolina's Barrier Islands (Second Edition, Globe Pequot Press, 2013).

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Pan-Roasted Fish

Thick and firm-fleshed fish, such as grouper, mahimahi or rockfish, do best with this quick and easy preparation.

Salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 (6 ounce) fish fillets, skin removed
1/2 lemon, juiced
Tomato of fresh fruit salsa, prepared pesto of herbed butter (optional)
2 tablespoons olive oil

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Salt and pepper the fish. Sprinkle with lemon juice. If using a salsa, pesto or herbed butter, spread a thin coating on each fillet.
In an ovenproof large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Place the fish in the oil, skinned-side up, sear for 2 minutes; turn the fish over, and sear another minute. Transfer the pan to the oven.
Roast fish for 6-10 minutes, depending in the thickness and desired doneness. (Check with a fork to see if the fish flakes or is no longer pink.) Remove fish to plates and top with salsa, pesto or herbed butter, if desired. Serve immediately.

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Margarita Grilled Shrimp

A happy hour on skewers, these shrimp as delicious served as an entree over a bed of greens and chopped red tomatoes or simply pulled from the skewers as an appetizer. You'll need about a dozen short (8-inch) skewers or six to eight long (12-inch) ones.

Yields 4-6 servings (or about 25 appetizers with shrimp alone)

2 pounds shrimp, peeled and deveined

FOR THE MARINADE1/4 cup tequila
2 tablespoons lime juice
Zest of 1 lime
1/4 cup thinly sliced green onion
1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro
1 small jalapeño pepper, minced
2 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. canola oil

FOR THE VEGETABLES6-8 cups mixed lettuce
2 tomatoes, chopped
4 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. tequila
1 Tbsp. lime juice
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Place marinade ingredients in a bowl or resealable plastic bag. Add shrimp and stir or shake to coat. Refrigerate about 30 minutes.
Preheat grill or broiler. If using wooden skewers, soak in water until needed. Thread shrimp of skewers, not packing them too tightly together so they will cook evenly.
Place shrimp on grill (or under broiler) and cook for a total of 5-6 minutes or until pink and firm, turning at least once. Remove from heat.
Prepare a bed of greens and tomatoes on each plate. Whisk together the olive oil, tequila and lime juice, then season. Pour over greens and tomatoes. Divide shrimp skewers evenly and plate them across the plates. Serve immediately.

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This article appeared in print with the headline "From the boat to your table."