Sushi Experiment

I decided to make sushi for the first time since I arrived in Greece. When I was living in UK, buying Japanese foodstuff wasn't difficult and price was UK, if not cheap, while in Greece some of the ingredients are unobtainable and, when they are, very expensive.

To make sushi, it is indispensable to get hold of 'Japanese' rice. It does not need to be import from Japan, but should be 'japonica' rice. The one I found was "Shinode" from Italy (2.90 euros). I bought it from an international grocer in my neighbourhood, but later saw the same thing for the same price in Skravenitis Supermaket.



"Shinode" should actually be "Hinode", Japanese word for sunrise. In some dialects, "Hi" tends to be pronouced like "Shi" and probably this rice was named by one of these people who speak this sort of dialect. It is rather funny for the Japanese who know standard Japanese.

And vinegar. It is obligatory to used rice vinegar and this one is Japanese Mitsukan bland.



4.50 euros are rather too much for a bottle of vinegar. It is almost 4 times more expensive than in Japan. But, what can we do? Anyway, one bottle of vinegar makes quite a lot of sushi.


I did not manage to go to buy fish this time, so I made cucumber rolls. I used the nori (black seaweed sheets) which I had bought in Japan, but it should be obtainable from a Japanese foodstuff shop in Syntagma. I don't know exactly how much does it cost, but won't expect it to be cheap, as, different from vinegar, it is not cheap thing even in Japan.



The result was OK, but the quality of rice wasn't up to the Japanese standard. When I was in UK, I could buy Chinese rice of very high quality for reasonable price, but, alas, here such choice isn't available.

Next time, I will try with fish!