Sushi Making Utensils

What do i need to make sushi?  here is a list of what utensils you need to make sushi:

• Rice cooker
• Sushi rolling mat (bamboo mat)
• wood oke bowl + wooden spoon
• fan (a simple hand fan or cold hair drier would do)
• Japanese Chef knife
• Cutting board
• chop sticks

Rice cooker

Although a rice cooker is not strictly necessary, it does make your life much more easy as you don’t have to keep track of how long the rice has been on the stove, you just place your rice and water in the rice cooker press the On button and sit back relax, there’s no worrying about the bottom burning or over/under cooking the rice, its all automated and timed to perfection. You can purchase expensive rice cookers or economic ones, personally I always go for the cheapest as it gets the job done fine.

Sushi bamboo rolling mat

This is an essential piece of equipment, it surprises me how many novice sushi chefs will attempt to make sushi without a bamboo rolling mat, especially when taking in to account that a rolling mat costs less than 2$ (more or less 1.5€) to buy.

Wooden Hangiri Oke Bowl

An Hangiri (oke) is a large shallow wooden bowl traditionally used when mixing cooked sushi rice with rice vinegar, the Hangiri is traditionally made of cypress wood which helps absorb any excess rice vinegar when mixing, this ensures perfectly seasoned sushi rice. Although you can use a large plastic tub instead it is nice to use authentic Japanese equipment to make a Japanese dish.

Nonstick rice paddle

A none stick rice paddle is essential to efficiently spread out the rice so it can evenly absorb the sushi rice vinegar, it has a specifically designed surface texture which doesn’t allow the rice to stick to it,  they are extremely cheap going for $3-$4, there is no excuse not to have one of these, it will make your life much easier.

Japanese style knife

Japanese knives differ from western knives in four very distinct ways;

1. most are only sharpened on one side, this makes for a thinner blade.
2. sharpened at a very low angle, usually around 16º, this also makes the blade thinner and creates less resistance when slicing.
3. sharpened till extremely sharp
4. made out of high carbon steel, this allows for a longer lasting sharper edge

The common theme in the above four points seems to be the sharpness of the blade. The only problem with this is how do you know if you knife is sharp enough? knife sharpness is truly an un measurable at dimension at least for those of us at home. The simple way I check if a knife is sharp enough is by simply taking a wet sponge and cutting through it with minimal force. Only the sharpest Japanese knives will slice though a wet sponge like a hot knife though butter, the good thing about this sponge test is that its a globally available product so its a very uniform test that can be done by anyone from the comfort of their own home.

Here is a post where I describe which knife I use to cut sushi with: miyabi 7000 pro

Cutting board

A very simple piece of equipment that every kitchen should already be equipped with. Now its true you can use any cutting board to make any food, but there is something indescribable about a nice big thick wooden cutting board which just oozes quality. Japanese sushi chefs traditionally use cutting boards made of a soft wood called Hinoki cypress, the softness preserves the edged of the knife will cutting, also the wood soaks up allot of the moisture will working on it.

 Chopsticks

chop sticks are not only a utensil for eating food but also regularly used in the kitchen to cook food with, ill admit it was a bit strange to use chop sticks while cooking at first but after a while you get used to it and its hard to remember how you ever lived without them in the first place.

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