Izakaya Menu #3 - Tosa-Maki (Tosa Roll) -

Tosa-maki (Tosa Roll) Sushi Tosa is the former name of Kochi prefecture. Until the end of the feudal era (about 200 years ago), this area was called Tosa-han (domain), ruled by the shogunate. Even today, many local cuisines or dishes with our local specialty, bonito (or dried bonito flakes) are still called Tosa-something. For example, Tosa-ni means food simmered with lots of bonito flakes. This Tosa-maki is a rolled sushi with seared bonito strips in, and I assume it was named so because seared bonito is Kochi’s most famous local dish. Anyway, we serve this Tosa-maki at the izakaya I work at, and that’s the only reason why I got familiarized with this sushi. My mom never made this at home, and I have never ordered one at any of the sushi restaurants I've visited in and outside Kochi. My life could have ended having nothing to do with this local dish at all, if I hadn’t tasted a piece of leftover Tosa-maki in the izakaya kitchen. Well, when something happens, it just happens, you know. This afternoon I found myself searing a bonito fillet in my kitchen. It was a mere curiosity --- I just wanted to see how close my Tosa-maki could get to what they serve at the izakaya. Read More To make Tosa-maki, you need bonito fillet, shiso (green perilla) leaves, garlic cloves, wasabi (Japanese horseradish paste), sushi rice and nori sheets (dried seaweed). I’m not going to post my recipe here because I think there’ll be very few people who would want to try this out. This is one of those dishes that only locals love, I suppose. The raw garlic slices and shiso leaves can be quite strong and I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of people in this world would find this dish unpleasant. Even I cannot eat one if the chef happened to like it strong and put so much garlic and perilla in the roll. But when the amount of all the ingredients is just right for you.... it brings out an unexpected harmony, and that’s what I like about this Tosa-maki sushi. Here's what I did: STEP 1 --- Cooking rice. I left the job to the electric rice cooker, of course, but I did adjust the amount of water to cook good sushi rice. They say that you should use just a little less amount of water than usual for cooking sushi rice. STEP 2 --- Searing bonito. I bought a half-a-quarter fillet at the store, so no cleaning/filleting job was necessary. All I had to do was searing it. Yes, quick and easy ;) Though some people don’t do this, at our izakaya they sprinkle salt over the bonito fillet before searing, so I did the same. Then I sliced it into several strips. I hate using my small kitchen knife for slicing fish, but that’s all I have now. Seared bonito strips STEP 3 --- Preparing sushi rice. Before the rice was done, I prepared seasoning vinegar, mixing vinegar, sugar and salt together. I’ve read somewhere that the proportion of those ingredients should be basically 5(vinegar) :4(sugar) :1(salt), but it sounded a little too sweet for me. So, for 1 cup of rice cooked, I mixed 5 tsp vinegar, 3 tsp sugar and 1 tsp salt in a bowl and tasted it. Mmm… I would modify the proportion to be 6(vinegar) : 3.5(sugar) : 0.5(salt) next time. It was just too much salt for me. The vinegar should be mixed into rice while the rice is still hot, but the rice has to be cooled down to body temperature to be used for sushi. While cooling the rice, I sliced the garlic ---- No, sorry, I’ll be honest. At that point I noticed that I forgot to buy green perilla leaves and dried seaweed, so I went for additional shopping. At the same supermarket where I bought the bonito a few hours ago, the casher smiled at me like “Hah, you forgot to buy these?” When I came back, the rice was cooled enough. STEP 4 --- Rolling, rolling… :D I placed the dried seaweed over a flame real briefly to lightly roast both sides, then placed it on makisu. Makisu seems to be translated as “sushi rolling mat” or “bamboo mat” etc. on the net and all of them are not wrong. It is what you see under the black, paper-like seaweed in this photo. Then I put rice over the seaweed, placed green perilla leaves, sliced garlic and seared bonito strips on it. Because I don’t like garlic tasting too strong, I left the garlic slices in water for a while beforehand. Now, the key ingredient of this dish is, though you can’t see it clearly in the photo here, is a little amount of wasabi applied on the bonito strips. I think this is what puts everything together and brings out the subtle sweetness of the fish and rice, honestly. The pungent flavor of raw garlic and smell of shiso could be too strong as they are, but surprisingly, this another pungent seasoning, wasabi, somehow harmonizes everything. I could be wrong, but that's the way I feel. Of course, if you put too much of it, it would ruin everything and you would literally end up in tears. ;) I rolled the sushi using the makisu, held it tight (but not too tight) for a few seconds to shape it, then sliced it with, again, the small kitchen knife I didn't like. I wish I had a better knife for that... Of course you can use both hands to roll sushi. I just had to hold my camera with my right hand to take this shot ... At our izakaya, three cooks work at one time, and each cook's Tosa-maki tastes slightly different. More than anything, the taste of this sushi largely depends on the quality of the bonito --- how fresh and how fatty/tasty it is, and the difference it makes is quite amazing. I have to admit that my Tosa-maki was far from what they serve at the izakaya. Well, at least I enjoyed trying this out very much, so I’m satisfied. After all, it's nice to know how to make a local traditional dish. When I eat real good Tosa-maki, I feel lucky to be living here in this rural area close to the Pacific Ocean, and who knows --- one day I might be able to make real good one myself ;) ---- * Today at work, I told one of the cooks there about my Tosa-maki attempt. He said that garlic slices didn’t have to be washed or left in water beforehand if I did a good job in slicing them paper-thin. Maybe it's about time I should think about getting a bigger, better kitchen knife…