“Sushi” is one of the best known Japanese foods in the world.
The word “sushi” might reminds you of nigiri-zushi, a rice ball with sashimi.
Actually Japanese culture has a various kinds of sushi, like chirashi-zushi, inari-zushi, maki-zushi, oshi-zushi, nare-zushi and so on.
Chirashi-zushi is a very familiar “sushi” to me as a special food for events like a family party.
Sushi-meshi(rice for sushi) is generally cooked with konbu(kelp) and a little Japanese sake, and then it is seasoned with vinegar and Japanese sake and sugar and a little salt.
When I make chirashi-zushi I add ingredients chopped vegetables such as gobo(burdock), carrot, shiitake mushrooms, and age (deep fried tofu) to sushi-meshi . Those are boiled in dashi-broth and seasoned with Japanese sake, soy sauce, mirin(Japanese sweet sake), sugar, and salt.
Kinshi-tamago(sliced very thin omelette) put on the top of chirashi-zushi makes a dish beautiful and delicious.
Inari-zushi is also familiar to Japanese family party as well as chirashi-zushi. It made by stuffing suhi-meshi to seasoned age(deep-fried tofu).
Age is boiled with dashi-broth, soy sauce, Japanese sake, and mirin(Japanese sweet sake), and sugar so as to infiltrate their taste into it.
In Japan, there are numerous shrines called “inari” like Fushimi-inari in Kyoto or Toyokawa-inari in Aichi. And people have believed that age is the favorite food of fox considered as the messenger of Inari God. It’s the origin of the name inari-zushi.
