When I say “sushi”, what image enters your mind? There’s so much more to sushi than a little tube of seaweed encasing rice and raw fish. Listen now to my short introduction to sushi and get ready to find your new food passion. Then, try your hand and make your own Sashimi and Avocado Appetizer for a fun night of dining at home. My recipe is easy to prepare and requires no special equipment!

Types of Sushi
There are several things you should know when dining or preparing delectable titbits of rice and fish. First a little background: You can find three different styles of sushi: sashimi, nigiri and maki.

Sashimi is just fish or shellfish, often raw and cold, possibly with some added condiments. Some people say that sashimi isn’t really sushi because sushi/zushi refers to the vinegared rice, but for our purposes here, I will include it under the umbrella of sushi.

Nigiri sushi is the sashimi placed on a bit of vinegared rice. Sometimes nigiri includes fish eggs, and sometimes it’s made with grilled eel. The rice and the other ingredients are pressed firmly together and served with traditional condiments like soy sauce, wasabi and ginger. For the most part, nigiri is the kind of sushi made without seaweed.

The type of sushi rolled with seaweed is called maki. Made in long rolls and sliced, these are the bite-size morsels that most people consider to be sushi. (If it’s made in cones by hand, it’s called temaki.) Typically, maki sushi has less raw fish and allows for more creativity on the part of the chef. Some kinds of maki are totally free of fish, containing ingredients like avocado, cucumber, apple…even beef…rolled into rice and seaweed. This is the type of sushi you see below on a platter I recently prepared as an appetizer for a small dinner party.

Nori is the name of the seaweed wrapper around maki sushi. Nori can be called a miracle food because it has more Vitamin C per unit than orange juice, more calcium than milk, and more protein than soybeans. It’s also high in several vitamins and minerals. Couple that with vinegared rice and fresh seafood, you’ve got yourself a healthy (if expensive) little treat.

RECIPE: Sashimi & Avocado Appetizer
Chef JoAnna
Two great places to purchase high-quality fish in Los Angeles are the 99 Ranch Markets and Santa Monica Seafood. They both sell sushi-quality salmon at reasonable prices.

INGREDIENTS
Lemon Juice - 1/2 teaspoon
Cold Water - 1 cup
Avocado - Ripe but still firm*
Wasabi Paste - optional, (just a little, “to taste”)
Soy Sauce - 1/2 cup, or more as needed
Salmon, sushi grade - Fresh or Fresh-Frozen*
Toothpicks - as needed

METHOD
Mix cold water and lemon juice.
Cut avocado flesh into rectangular chunks, about 2″ long.
Arrange on a plate and brush with lemon-water.
Mix soy sauce and wasabi, if used.
Cut up the salmon into strips 1/2″ by 2″ long.
Wrap salmon strips around avocado chunks, secure with toothpick.
Brush with soy sauce mixture, and refrigerate until ready to serve.

*How much salmon and avocado you use depends on how much you & your guests want to eat!
(SAFETY TIP: If the salmon is frozen, defrost in the refrigerator, NEVER at room temperature!)

Healthy Sushi
Keep in mind, however, that no matter how healthy sushi can be, you still must remember that you’re eating raw fish. Ask any first-quarter culinary student: fish should not smell fishy. Use your common sense and take a sniff before eating any kind of sushi.

Most sushi fish are specially frozen to make it safe from parasites, but freezing doesn’t protect you from everything. Some fish used in sushi are predatory fish, which means that they eat other fish. The bigger a predator is, the more little fish it eats. What does this mean to you? Predatory fish contain concentrated levels of contaminants like mercury. Mercury poisioning is dangerous stuff, causing numbness, joint pain, disorentation, and dementia. Avoid large quantities of sushi called Maguro (tuna), Toro (fatty tuna), Hamachi (yellowtail/amberjack), and Hirame (halibut), because these are especially high in mercury. Sake (salmon) is a low mercury risk, and it has more of those desirable Omega-3s that give fish a good repuatation.

So evaluate your choices and weigh the consequences. You, too, might find yourself addicted to sushi, but now you can make educated choices when dining on these little treasures of Japanese cuisine!

If you’d like to prepare your own sushi and learn more, schedule an appointment with me on ChefsLine.

~ Chef JoAnna