“An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.”
- Bill Vaughan

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The taste of sushi greatly depends on the taste of sushi rice. It is often said that the rice part shares as much as 60% of it, according to the opinions of many sushi chefs.  The key factor is the ’shari’  itself, as well as fish (sashimi) quality.
There are some certain and easy know-hows in preparation of the sushi rice at home.

How to select rice:

It does not much depend on the quality of the rice, such as ‘Koshi-hikari’, one of the best and most expensive brands, or ‘Sasa-nishiki’, usually the second and expensive one, those are ideal japonica species for usual daily diet in Japan, but they are sometimes said to be less suitable for sushi-rice, because of their much sticky characteristics.
The most important  factor in selecting a short-grain (japonica subspecies) white rice is how much that brand is capable of absorbing the water in nature, which in turn corresponds to how much the vinegar is soaked by the cooked rice. Because the degree of the vinegar penetration into the rice plays a greater part of the taste of sushi rice, and it effects whole sushi taste consequently.
By this reason, it is not always necessary to use a new rice (’shin-mai’) which is relatively abundant in water-content, but an older, long-stored rice (’ko-mai,’ i.e. one year old) is rather suitable for ’shari’ owing to lesser water content.  Many sushi restaurants use their own mixture of these two kinds with a ratio of more than 50% of ‘ko-mai.’

How to cook rice:

How to vinegar the cooked rice:

Do not wait a minute after the cook.  Rice vinegar (’kome-zu/yone-zu’) mixture (’awase-zu’) should be prepared 30 minutes before the use for good dissolving of the ingredients, with the following Basic Recipe (if possible, with ‘kombu’ (kelp), and/or either a little of sake or mirin – sweet cooking rice wine.)  Add salt to vinegar first and warm it up for a better dissolving and secondly sugar.
(By the way, sugar was never used in the very former times at all, but no one does so today.)

Mixing technique:

The most important and critical point is the temperature of the cooked rice, which is the key factor how much the vinegar can penetrate into the rice grains, and this is the crucial process in the preparation and getting the utmost taste of the sushi rice.

Temperature (°C / °F) Procedure  90 194 As soon as the rice has been cooked, replace it in a ball or plate and spread (sprinkle) the vinegar mixture over the rice still it is well hot (at 90° C,) and mix it to every rice grain completely by using spatula with a movement of ‘cutting action,’ with all possible care not to smash the particles to get sticky (for 1 minute is enough.) 70 158 Only after completing the mixing (at 70° C,) again replace and/or spread the ‘shari‘ on a wider plate, preferably in a wooden vessel (uncoated ’sushi-oke’ or ‘hangiri,’) which can absorb excessive sweat, and fan the ’shari’ to evaporate unnecessary moisture on the grain surfaces (for 1 minute is enough.) 30 86 To get a maturation of the ’shari,’ cover with a clean damp towel and leave for a quarter of an hour to cool it down, then it will be ready for sushi making (Nigiri) at 30° C – this temperature is also a key factor of a delicious sushi.

A Practical Example:

This is a typical example for a small sushi party, for 2-3 persons.  It takes about two hours or more in total from the beginning.

How to make Nigiri by hands:

Use ‘Te-zu’ (hand-vinegar, vinegar for hands, some diluted vinegar solution thinned with water by 1:2 or 1:3) for moistening your hands.  Also it is advisable to warm up cool down your palms at the same or preferably below the temperature of the shari in order not to stick much.
Do not grasp and press shari and fish too tight, and try to introduce much air space (hollows) in the rice.  Also at the same time, be sure and try not to get them be aparted each other easily! (a contradictory story, but it the true technique for a better taste of sushi.)
The ways of hand-forming of sushi are actually named, Te-gaeshi, Tate-gaeshi and Kote-gaeshi (’-gaeshi’ suffix for ‘kaeshi’ means turning the sushi rice ball.)
A delicious, hand-formed shari (now ‘nigiri’) and fish never broken down when picked up with chopsticks, and at the same time, pieces of rice never fail to get loosed until in the mouth.

credit to http://homepage3.nifty.com/maryy/eng/shari2.htm

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A good serrated knife, a flexible filleting knife, a pair of fish pliers (clean needle nosed pliers are fine) a chopping board and some clingfilm.

Oh yeah, and a fish…
If you’ve bought the fish whole then it’s very likely not to have been scaled. Unless you plan on skinning the fillets once you’ve taken them off, its a good idea to scale the fish now. Trying to scale fillets is possible but ruins the flesh.

To scale the salmon, clear away everything around your sink. The scales will flick everywhere so it’s best to get as much stuff out of the way as possible or you’ll be finding scales in unlikely places for weeks.

Always scale the fish from tail to head. This is against the direction the scales grow and allows you to get a knife in under them.

Hold the knife at roughly 45 degrees to the fish and scrape up towards the head in short, sharp movements. Only try to scale a small area at a time. You may find that a stiffer bladed knife is better for this job than a filleting knife.

Make sure you scale right up to the gill flaps and around the fins along the body of the fish. wipe the knife blade off frequently with a piece of paper towel. Try not to get too many scales in the sink… you’ll only have to pick them out of the plug hole later!

Once the fish is scaled, give it a good rinse over the outside running the water from head to tail.

Also, give the body cavity a quick rinse, but dry it with kitchen towel to avoid letting too much water seep into the flesh.

Place the fish on the board and pick up your serrated knife. Feel just behind the gill flaps on the fish’s body and you’ll find a bony part, right next to the gills. Place your knife here, running alongside the bony part.

Take a firm hold of the fish and using the serrations of the knife, cut straight down through the fish’s neck, taking care to keep right behind the front fins.Discard the head, salmon doesn’t make a good stock anyway and the head can make it taste bitter.

Now you should be able to see the backbone of the fish, looking in from where the head was.

Take your serrated knife again, and start cutting the top fillet off by running the knife along the back bone of the fish, sawing as you go.

Watch the knife coming out of the top of the fish, it should just shave past the dorsal fins. Keep cutting all the way to the tail of the fish. You should easily be able to feel the knife running along the backbone as you cut.

When you’ve reached the tail, keep cutting, the knife will pass through the last bit of the fillet and then you can just lift the top fillet off.

To take off the lower fillet, turn the fish over onto the bone.

Again, take your serrated knife, cut along the spine, but this time, use the fingers on the hand holding the fish to lift the belly flap up out of the knife’s way.

Lifting the belly up like this stops the knife chewing into the belly flesh and shredding it.

Once you have reached the tail, you will be able to lift the bones clear of the fillet.

To finish and prepare the fillets, they need to be trimmed and boned. Carefully lay the fillet on the board and check for loose scales of bits of bone and remove as needed.

First, using the filleting knife, trim away any excess fatty tissue from the top of the fillet. The fatty stuff sometimes runs down onto the fillet as well, so this will need to be trimmed off with a sharp knife.

Now, feel along the belly with your fingers and find the rib bones. Using a sharp filleting knife, insert the edge of the blade under the ends of the bones, then use an smooth slicing action cut the bones away from the flesh. To minimise wastage, use an upward pressure on the knife and angel it towards the bones so you scrape the flesh off as you cut.

Once the ribs are removed, trim the belly back to neaten the fillet. The flesh down here is very fatty and you should use your own judgement as to how much to trim off.

Now comes the fiddly bit. You now need to remove the ‘pin’ bones that run along the length of the fillet to about 3/4 the way down. This is done easily with a pair of pliers.

First, run your fingers, just above the spine-line along the fillet. You should be able to easily feel the bones sticking in the flesh.

Using the pliers, gently grasp the end of the bone, tying not to nip the flesh as it will tear and leave a hole.

Now gently pull the bone out of the flesh. Make sure you pull at an angle of roughly 45 degrees TOWARDS the head of the fish or you’ll just tear a hole in the fish as the bone comes out.

Repeat this process all the way down the fish until you can’t feel anymore bones.

And there you have it, one fillet ready to be cut for steaks or poached or frozen whole… but we’ll save that thread for another day, I think…
Click here to view the embedded video.

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Like hirame, suzuki makes an elegant paper-thin sashimi, suzuki usu zukuri, which is as pleasant to pronounce as it is to eat. Suzuki sashimi is often served with ponzu, a lemony soy sauce, or served in the summertime on a bed of ice cubes with tangy shiso leaf and a scattering of red pepper flakes.”

see a video..
Click here to view the embedded video.

1-Remove the scales.
2-Cut off the head by inserting the knife at an angle behind the pectoral fin and cut halfway through. Turn the fish over and do the same thing to remove the head.
3-Slicing the top part: After cutting lines on its stomach, cut the meat from head to tail following along the center bone.
4-Slicing the bottom part: Turn it over bone-side down and insert the knife from the stomach.
5-Start slicing it following its center bone to the tail.
6-Still keeping the bone-side down, turn the fish around and slice it from tail to head.
7-Shave the stomach bones off. Lift them up softly while shaving them off.
8-Done—

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INGREDIENTS for Sake Maki
Salmon
Sushi Rice
Nori
*To serve: soy sauce, wasabi paste, pickled ginger.
see video “A very basic and easy way to make salmon roll.”
Click here to view the embedded video.
.1. Cut salmon into thin stripes.

2. Cut seaweed sheet into halves.

3. Place rice appr. 2 cm wide and 0,5 cm high on the seaweed sheet.

4. But a tiny bit of wasabi paste onto the rice.

5. Place salmon in the middle of the rice.

6. Wetten the end of the sheet a bit with water.

7. Roll the sheet with the bamboo mat and “glue” the ends of roll together.

8. Cut the roll into appr. six pieces. For better results you can wetten the knife with water mixed with vinegar.

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