Recipe: Summer Inari Sushi--Sour and gingery (Patreon)

I saw this recipe (link to original at bottom), somewhat altered it to make it more interesting, and wanted to share. It calls for sudachi (a small, green, citrus fruit that tastes somewhat like lime). Since I am not sure how easy it is to get sudachi where you are, I used one sudachi and half a lime. There was no big difference in taste at all.

Ingredients:

One package of inari sushi pouches (Can you get these? If not I'll find a recipe for making them with aburage.) I had a package of 24, but could only fill about 19 or 20. Totally ate the rest as they were, because yum! Foxes know tasty treats when the eat them (*⁰▿⁰*)!

So,

1 cucumber -- thinly sliced, sprinkled with salt. Let sit for awhile until goes limp, then squeeze out extra water.

2 tablespoons fresh peeled ginger -- the recipe called for cutting into tiny, thin sticks (photo below), but I ended up mincing it so it would mix better in with the rice. You can use more if you like ginger.

Sudachi or lime -- washed and cut into thin slices, deseeded. I used both. Cut the lime into fourths, so it would rest nicely on the inari sushi

Sesame seeds (optional) -- I just love sprinkling things with sesame seeds

--

Rice -- two cups (before cooking)

To make sushi rice:

Add the below to cooked rice. I was taught to drizzle in slowly while gently folding the rice over and fanning it with a paper fan (to keep it shiny, I was told). If you count three hands in this operation, you're correct. Fanning was usually done by anyone who happened to be nearby and looked free.

rice vinegar -- 1/4 cup (Japanese rice vinegar is much milder than American white vinegar, by far. You can use the pre-made sushi rice vinegar, too, if you'd like. Already sweetened and salted. Note: you can use less vinegar, as well. I like sour.

soy sauce -- 1 tablespoons

sugar -- 2~4  tablespoons (depending on how sweet you like your sushi rice

salt -- a pinch or to taste

Stir well to dissolve sugar. You can heat it up to melt the sugar, but that might mellow the vinegar, too. So add a couple more splashes of vinegar, if you'd like after heating. I like sour.

*All the above can be adjusted to taste. If you like it more sour or sweet. You can also experiment with honey or something else. I've noticed the sushi rice I've had in America is much less sweet than in Japan. I thought that was interesting.

Put the cooked rice in a different dish to cool while I sprinkled in the sauce (above), mixed and tasted.

I ended up squeezing some of the lime juice into this. Not sure if it made a big difference. Next time I might add more lime juice and cut back on vinegar.

I also found (below) yuzu (another citrus fruit that has a wonderful aroma) powder and added some to the rice as I mixed it...but I really couldn't taste a difference. Totally optional. If you can find something like this, it might be fun. I'm all for layering flavors. Not necessary to add though, by any means.

First I made tiny matchstick ginger (original recipe).

Then changed my mind and just minced it.

Also squeezed out water from one cucumber and added most of that and most of the minced ginger to the rice. Set aside a bit of both ginger and cucumber to decorate the inari sushi later.

Mix. Mix. Mix. Gently.

This is a sudachi. Very small (marble-sized) and seedy.

Slice very thinly your sudachi or lime. I cut the lime into fourths.

Here are the inari sushi pouches that I can get here. Warm the packages in hot water before opening, helps them not tear.

Then gently squeeze out the extra liquid from them and carefully open. Fill with the rice mixture, shape, and top with bits of ginger bits, and slices of cucumber and lime/sudachi.

After I had them all filled, I sprinkled with sesame seeds and squeezed the left over lime all over them.

Tadah!

My version...

※The cover photo is from the original recipe. Here's a link if you want to try that version. Personally, I found it needed more flavor. I also very much doubt the rice in that photo has the 1 tablespoon of soy sauce the recipe calls for. It's perfectly white! Great photo, nonetheless!

Here's the original:

https://www.mainichigrillbu.com/recipe/1446