Sushi Feast At Home!!

Our friend, Billy, had a birthday last week and Molly and I wanted to make him a celebratory dinner. We know he really likes Japanese food, so we thought we'd make a sushi feast for him. I had never purchased sushi grade fish, so it was kind of an adventure. We started by going by Sun Fat Seafood Market on Mission St. at 22nd. We had heard of it through a friend and read some great reviews on yelp.com. It definitely is a great fish shop and I will definitely be going there again. They had trays of whole snapper, fresh shrimps, crab, clams, oysters, mussels, and various other fish. Everything looked fresh and was very reasonably priced.

From there we went to Japantown, ending up at Uoki Sakai K Company. We read reviews about it on yelp.com and called to see what they had. They had just what we needed. When we got to the seafood counter our hesitant minds about buying fish for sushi was eased by a woman ahead of us in line who was a regular. She bought almost 3 pounds of fish that she was using to make sushi for her family that night. We got to the counter and got a beautiful piece of hawaiian ahi tuna and asked for some hamachi. The fishmonger didn't have any hamachi out, but asked me to wait and ran to the back. He came back with a huge uncut hamachi! He filleted the fish on the spot and let me pick my piece. The fish was so fresh and we were excited to make some sushi.

To start the meal I made a simple and delicious Salmon & Egg Drop Soup. This is a recipe I got from my dad and its quickly becoming one of my favorites. In a bowl you place a small handful of thinly chopped napa cabbage, enoki mushrooms (thinly sliced shitake will also work), dollop of fresh ginger, a few peices of thinly sliced salmon, a few drops of sesame oil and a few black sesame seeds. Make a simple broth--- I used vegetable broth, a touch of dashi, some chinese five spice and a dash of white pepper. Bring the broth to a boil, swirl slightly with a spoon and slowly pour in one egg (scrambled and thinned with water or a bit of broth). The egg should cook immediately. While the broth is piping hot, pour a couple ladles full over the items in the bowl and they should all cook just through. Serve immediately.



We ended up going a little bit overboard and made over 12 rolls along with some nigiri. We made a teriyaki eggplant roll, baby shitake mushroom roll, pickled plum and shiso roll, avocado w/ teriyaki and shiso, hamachi w/macadamia, shiso & sesame seeds, hamachi w/avocado & lime, ahi w/chilis & cucumber....it went on and on! Oh, and the teriyaki sauce was homemade. (1 cup soy sauce, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 sake. Bring to a boil and then simmer to reduce.)





I wanted something refreshing for dessert, so I made a Meyer Lemon Granita served with Lemonchello Liqueur. You basically make a lemonade mixture, but in this case I used meyer lemons and added a bit of zest. You place the mixture in a rectangular pyrex dish and put it in the freezer. As an icy crust forms you break up the mixture with a pastry scraper. Repeat this process until the ice is the right consistency. Delicious!