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.

click to enlarge

• 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."

click to enlarge

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."

click to enlarge

• 
  

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.

The Big Leagues: Fullsteam and Cackalacky aim to go nationwide with a new brew

This post first ran in the Independent Weekly on Jan. 2.

Sean Lilly Wilson and Page Skelton are on a mission. Call it their manifest destiny. They're also on a tight deadline.

Since summer, the longtime friends have been quietly developing a bold business plan to introduce a new beer they hope will expand the Fullsteam brewery brand from the Carolinas to the farthest reaches of the beerisphere. And they have chosen Jan. 27, National Kazoo Day Eve, for the loud and buzzworthy launch of Cackalacky beer.



Page Skelton (right) of Cackalacky hot sauces and Sean Lilly Wilson of Fullsteam
are collaborating on a "Cackalacky" ginger pale ale that will be added to the
brewery's year-round lineup. (Photo by Jeremy M. Lange)

"Fundamentally, I'm a gut-instinct kind of person, and my gut says this is the beer that's going to change things for us," says Wilson, self-titled Chief Executive Optimist at Fullsteam. "We do a lot of seasonal and one-off beers, but we don't want this to be ephemeral. We want this one to last."While the beer is named Cackalacky, it contains none of the "famously original" zesty condiment made from sweet potatoes that Skelton created a decade ago and still produces in Chapel Hill. The beer's distinct flavor profile is ginger pale ale.

"Our Southern beer philosophy is subtlety and nuance, a little pleasing suggestion of a thing rather than over the top," Wilson says, drawing a comparison to Fullsteam's Carver lager, which is made from, but doesn't especially taste like, sweet potatoes. "We approached this beer the same way. We continually try to defy expectations."

Skelton recalls being thrilled at the idea of calling it Cackalacky. "We did market research and found that nobody wanted to drink a Page Skelton," he says with mock sobriety. "Honestly, we've been talking about a collaboration for a long time but hadn't landed on the right idea. This is what finally made it happen."

Some Fullsteam fans sipped early batches of the beer last spring. Production Manager Dave Haydysch used both fresh and candied ginger to create its balanced, yin-yang flavor. Head brewer Chris Davis is the mastermind for tweaking the original recipe for large-scale production.

"We want Fullsteam to be a landmark brew for the South, and we think this will be a landmark beer that tells the story of what is possible," says Wilson, who has been deliberate in developing beers built on products from and relationships with local growers. "We will remain provincial in our sourcing, but we want to be evangelical in our reach."

"Cackalacky is slang for North Carolina, and that's part of the fun," adds Skelton. "I mean, doesn't it sound like fun to walk into a bar and order a Cackalacky? Who wouldn't want to try it?"

Win Bassett, executive director of the N.C. Brewers Guild and social media manager for All About Beer Magazine, was one of those who savored the early samples.

"If it's anything like what I tried, I think it will do quite well," Bassett says. "But it's really difficult for any beer to make it big on the national level."

Bassett says the buzz about North Carolina beer is well acknowledged. Asheville has dominated the BeerCity USA contest in recent years, and four in-state breweries won medals at this year's Great American Beer Festival in Denver.

But competition is growing. North Carolina now boasts 73 breweries, four of which opened this month. Only a handful of them market their suds beyond the state lines, and none have achieved national distribution, Bassett says.

Still, he thinks Fullsteam is smart in putting its money on such a distinctive beer style. "I'm fairly familiar with the national scene, and off the top of my head I can't come up with a widely known ginger pale ale, or even a craft-level ginger beer," he says. "It really is unique."

Fullsteam's Wilson thinks of it as a "crowd-pleasing beer" and believes the crisp flavor would complement burgers, pizza and spicy Thai food. He and Skelton are still debating a logo concept that will capture the brand's broad appeal.

"We want to be clear that this is not a novelty beer," says Wilson, adding that the design also needs to look great on a can, which is part of the larger distribution plan. "If we're going to tell the story far and wide, we want a lighter environmental package. But we still want it to look as great as it tastes."

In anticipation of the beer's success, and to generally increase Fullsteam's capacity, Wilson plans to trade out some brewing tanks this summer for larger models. "It will probably be the last big growth mode we do here," he says, quickly adding that he has no intention of relocating the 2-year-old tavern, which has become a de facto community center where locavores and others interested in culture and civic life congregate.

"We're definitely not moving," he says, grasping the long wooden bar to make his point. "Any further expansion would be off site because we are committed to staying right here."

Wilson and Skelton are looking forward to the Jan. 27 launch party at Fullsteam for Cackalacky. They are eager to gauge the response of patrons but admit the debut really has little connection with National Kazoo Day.

"No reason, other than it's just fun," Wilson says with a grin. "I call some of our events here 'beautiful stupid.' If we can meet our deadline and celebrate Cackalacky beer with kazoo karaoke, or a kazoo-off, then we will have met our mission."

Update: The print version of this article listed the launch date as Jan. 28; the date changed after publication and is now Jan. 27.

Double blessings with hope for 'wok hay'

I can't remember the last time I was so happy to be wrong.

I've been using the same wok for about 30 years. I've been proud of its dark, non-stick patina and felt confident stir-frying countless meals. Sure, I'd flirted with sleek stainless versions and I wondered, as anyone might, if a long-handled model might be more satisfying. Yet I remained faithful.

But I recently realized that my wok's round, Cantonese shape and my standard Western gas range lack the makings of a happy marriage. Memories of soppy, unintended braises and limp vegetables resurfaced like forgotten, but unresolved, arguments. And those stubby, blazing hot metal handles? Let's not even go there.

The only way to breathe life into my old wok, I realized, was to replace it with a new, flat-bottom, carbon steel one designed to make the most of American stoves. I followed the advice of wok guru Grace Young, who was in Chapel Hill last month for a gastronomic feast in her honor at Lantern and a reading at Flyleaf Books presented by Culinary Historians of the Piedmont North Carolina.

Raymond Leung of Classic Silver Wok
1322 Fordham Blvd., Chapel Hill

At Lantern, I had the good fortune to dine with both Young and Raymond Leung, owner of Classic Silver Wok in Chapel Hill. Leung's unassuming shop caters to everyday locals who load up giant bags of Jasmine rice and to culinary superstars like Lantern's Andrea Reusing. Needless to say, I asked for his help in selecting a new wok.

An unforeseen delivery delay postponed acquisition until today, but now that I have it I can hardly believe I fought with my wobbly old one for so long. To season and imbue it with "wok hay" -- the "breath of a wok" Young so eloquently describes -- I decided to give it a double blessing: first the technique Young recommends, and then the method suggested by Leung.

After giving it a good soapy scrub -- the one and only time detergent will come close -- I dried it well and set it on a high flame. Into a shimmering puddle of fragrant peanut oil I tossed in sticks of juicy ginger and swirled it around the pan with a handful of green onions. I then cut the onions into two-inch lengths, added them to the pan and dialed back the flame to medium.

I flipped and pressed the mixture into the bowl until it disintegrated about 10 minutes later, then used paper towel to brush out the crumbs and rub a thin coat of the remaining oil over the pan. The towel came away with a trace of gray, evidence of the wok's manufacturing process.

After the wok cooled, it was time for Leung's technique, which involved a sturdy block of firm tofu diced into cubes. After bringing the pan back to temperature, I poured in a drizzle of peanut oil and added the tofu. The pale white cubes grabbed the remaining gray silt like a sponge, leaving the pan clean and the tofu in precisely the unappetizing condition Leung described.

Now ringed with a pale cast of color, the wok appeared ready for real cooking. Tim had bought several bunches of slender asparagus from the market, as well as sweet spring onions. After heating the wok and quickly reaching the magic moment when, as Young describes, a drop of water vanishes in a flash, I poured in a final tablespoon of peanut oil and swirled the pan to coat. Some minced ginger and thin slices of onion followed, along with a generous shake of Asian Sprinkle. Next came two bunches of asparagus, trimmed into two-inch lengths, and a handful of raw cashews. I stir-fried constantly, about two minutes, until asparagus was bright green and tender crisp.

I thought I was done at that point, but the result was too gingery for my taste. I turned the heat back on, adding about a teaspoon of sugar and a splash of sweetened black vinegar. It cooked just long enough for the vinegar to absorb and evaporate, less then a minute, and gained a restaurant-quality sheen I was pleased to serve. I sighed -- and could almost swear I heard my new wok do the same.

With Grace Young at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill.