Kitchen Guide: Sushi

Sushi is single most recognizable Japanese dish in the world.
Sushi comes in different shapes and arrangements. However, at its very basic it has seafood, or meat and rice as ingredient. Below are popular sushi variants

Nigiri

This type of sushi is possibly you've seen most. It is the simplest form of sushi, hand shaped seasoned rice with toppings. Popular toppings include fishes, fish roes, squids, shellfishes, beef tataki, and veggies.

Gunkan

Gunkan translates to battleship in Japanese. Gunkan sushi is nigiri sushi with seaweed wrapped along its perimeter. The purpose is to contain the topping which is usually difficult to keep intact, such as salmon roe (ikura), and sea urchin roe (uni).

Maki

 Maki sushi, widely known as rolled sushi, has its fillings rolled inside a sushi rice. Fillings are usually combination of various ingredient, salamon, eel, avocado, crab sticks, mayonnaise, flying fish roe (tobiko), cucumber, shiitake mushroom, egg (tamago), etc.
Traditionally, maki has sea seaweed wrapped outside the roll. Modern version of maki sushi includes inside out roll.

Temaki

Temaki literally means hand (te) maki (rolled sushi), i.e. a handy version of maki. It is shaped like a cone for ease of handling and very suitable to eat on the go.

Hakozushi

A variant of nigiri sushi which differentiate itself on its shape. Hakozushi takes the form of squarish shape.

Chirashi Sushi

Chirashi Sushi is very similar to Katsudon, in which various slices of toppings are arranged and stack on top a bowl of sushi rice.

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Kitchen Guide: PASTA!

Legend has it that pasta was first introduced to Italy by Marcopolo, who brought it over from ancient china. Since then, pasta spread across Italy. Each region in Italy developed different shapes of pasta, ingredients, processing methods, and sauces.

The followings are nine popular pasta noodle that are widely consumed.

1. Spaghetti
shape : Noodle
variant : Bolognese (grounded beef & tomato sauce)

2. Fusilli
shape : Spiral
variant : Al-Pesto (fusilli tossed in pesto)

3. Macaroni
shape : Bend hollow tube
variant : Mac & Cheese (grilled macaroni in cheese bath)

4. Lasagna
shape: Sheet
variant : Beef Lasagna (grounded beef & tomato sauce)

5. Fettuccine
shape : Flat noodle
variant : Alfredo (cream & herbs)

6. Penne
shape : Hollow tube
variant : Napolitana (tomato sauce & herbs)

7. Ravioli
shape: Handbag pouch
variant : Four Cheese Ravioli (ricotta, mascarpone, pamersan & mozzarella)

8. Tortellini
shape: Ring pouch
variant : Tortellini Primavera (Tortellini tossed with carrots, mushroom, asparagus, & other veggies)

9. Gnocchi
shape: Cylindrical
variant : Gnocchi Gorgonzola (wheat flour, egg, cheese & potato dough in Gorgonzola cheese sauce)

 In your next visit to Italian eatery, you can impress your mates with know-what on Pasta!