1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (204 page)

The meal is usually a festive group event, in the manner of Swiss fondue, and begins by heating up a broth flavored with the briny giant kelp called kombu. Napa cabbage, onions, carrots, and a few earthy mushrooms might be added to the pot. Each diner is armed with long chopsticks or a fondue fork and a small dipping bowl, as well as condiments such as the citrusy, dark
ponzu
sauce, toasted sesame sauce, minced scallions, and finely grated daikon, the pungent giant white radish. Salt and the chile-hot seven-spice powder
shichimi
might also be on the table, for added sprightliness. All of these are mixed to taste in the dipping bowls, and the cooking begins.

Colorfully fanned out on huge serving platters are paper-thin slices of beef or lamb, or some of each, lacy with ivory fat, plus shiitake mushrooms, slivered scallions, and maybe also thin rounds of onion, small leaves of napa cabbage, dark and herbaceous chrysanthemum leaves, cubes of tofu, and perhaps sliced fresh bamboo shoots. The meat is best cooked rare, with the vegetables simmered to slightly firm tenderness; when done, each bite is dipped into the sauce bowl. After everything has been cooked and consumed, the broth, now intensely flavored, is ladled into the dipping bowl and the result is happily quaffed.

Where:
In Kyoto
, Junidanya, tel 81/75-561-1655;
in New York
, Shabu-Shabu 70, tel 212-861-5635,
shabushabu70.com
;
in Gardena, CA
, Sanuki No Sato, tel 310-324-9184,
sanukinosato.com
.
Mail order:
For hot pots,
korin.com
(search shabu-shabu hot pot; chopstick cooking long).
Further information and recipes:
The Cooking of Japan
by Rafael Steinberg (1969);
Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art
by Shizuo Tsuji (2012);
Japanese Hot Pots
by Tadashi Ono and Harris Salat (2011);
japanesefood.about.com
(search beef shabu-shabu);
epicurious.com
(search shabu-shabu).
See also:
Waterzooi à la Gantoise
(Belgian Chicken Stew).

Among the world’s cherished noodles, Japanese soba is one of the most unusual forms: a silky, toasty, spaghetti-like stick made from buckwheat flour. Once a food of the poor, it’s now considered a subject worthy of devoted connoisseurship, with the very best examples made from freshly harvested and milled buckwheat mixed with water and a bit of hard-wheat flour, the dough kneaded and cut by hand into slender strands with a chewy bite. Although in soba restaurants, the noodles can be had hot in rich broths fleshed out with bits of chicken, duck, shrimp tempura, tofu, mushrooms, or other offerings, purists opt for
zaru soba
—“soba in a basket,” which might really mean soba on a
bamboo mat, with the noodles served cold. (Quite cold, in fact, especially when there’s cracked ice under that bamboo mat.)

Nothing could be simpler than this briefly boiled noodle, chilled and dipped into a sauce that, according to the diner’s preference, might include mirin (sweet rice wine), soy sauce, wasabi, raw egg yolk, finely minced scallions, dashi (kelp and fish broth), and daikon radish. Flecks of nori (dried seaweed) are the garnish preferred by soba mavens; at the end of the meal, some of the tasty cooking water might be warmed up and ladled into the sauce dish for a palate-cleansing finish.

Soba is always served as a main course, never a side dish or appetizer. Although it is popular throughout Japan, it is traditionally the noodle of Tokyo and of northern Japan. Udon, the thick, satisfyingly chewy, ivory wheat-flour noodle, is a specialty of southern Japan and Osaka. While they are interchangeable in many recipes, soba is more likely than udon to be served cold; udon is most pleasant in hot broth.

For a really unusual treat, try soba sushi, a specialty in some soba houses, and one that usually must be ordered in advance. For this, anywhere from twenty-five to thirty strands of the very fine, vermicelli-like noodles are rolled, tied together, and cooked in boiling water. When cool, they are wrapped in nori and sliced crosswise in the manner of maki sushi rolls. The chewy strands enfolded in the snappingly crisp seaweed with some sesame seeds, diced cucumber, and radish sprouts, all dipped into the pungent soba sauce, add up to a delicacy well worth seeking out.

Where:
In Toyko
, Toshian, tel 81/3-3444-1741;
in New York
, Soba Nippon, tel 212-489-2525,
sobanippon.com
; EN Japanese Brasserie, tel 212-647-9196,
enjb.com
;
in Washington, DC
, Sushi Taro, tel 202-462-8999,
sushitaro.com
;
in Los Angeles
, Soba Sojibo, tel 310-479-1200;
in Brentwood, CA
, Takao Sushi, tel 310-207-8636,
takaobrentwood.com
;
in Seattle
, Miyabi 45th, tel 206-632-4545,
miyabi45th.com
.
Mail order:
asiangrocer.com
;
marukaiestore.com
; for buckwheat flour,
bobsredmill.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art
by Shizuo Tsuji (2012);
Washoku
by Elizabeth Andoh (2005);
saveur.com
(search zaru soba; soba dipping sauce);
epicurious.com
(search mint and scallion soba noodles);
thekitchn.com
(search how to make buckwheat noodles from scratch).

Lotus root’s holes are actually air chambers.

In this incomparably crunchy, fresh, pickled offering, thin, round disks of sliced lotus root—whose big, lacy openings are actually air chambers that keep the aquatic plant afloat—are gently simmered in a sweetened vinegar mixture. The result bears tantalizing counterpoints of texture and flavor; sparked by the salty-sweet, tangy vinaigrette, the lotus root,
renkon
in Japanese, retains its crispness while gaining an inner tenderness.

Lotus is a favorite food throughout Asia, harvested for its roots as well as its leaves and blossoms, and representing purity and enlightenment in the Buddhist tradition. The tan, sausage-shaped root can also be cooked with pork bones into a homey, curative Chinese
soup, or simmered with a sticky-sweet soy glaze for a favorite Korean appetizer. In Japan, the root can be prepared tempura style, in thin, crackle-coated disks that complement other vegetables and seafood. But
subasu
, with its clean and pure flavor, may be the very best showcase for the lotus root’s icy crunch and subtle taste.

Where:
In New York
, Brushstroke, tel 212-791-3771,
davidbouley.com/brushstroke-main
;
in Chicago
, Oysy Sushi, tel 312-670-6750,
oysysushi.com
; Vora, tel 312-929-2035,
vorachicago.com
.
Mail order:
marxfoods.com
(search fresh lotus root); Mitsuwa Marketplace,
mitsuwa.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Washoku
by Elizabeth Andoh (2005);
Asian Ingredients
by Bruce Cost (2000);
Japanese Farm Food
by Nancy Singleton Hachiso (2012);
starchefs.com
(search pickled lotus root);
cdkitchen.com
(search marinated lotus root).

When it comes to sushi, there is no margin for error: Everything has to be just right. The fish must be ocean fresh. It must be cut just thin enough, and perfectly against or with the grain, as dictated by its structure. It must feel nicely cool against the lips and, on a mixed platter, must contribute the right hue and texture to the rainbow array of fish. Serious connoisseurs always sit at the sushi bar, eating each offering as it is presented, so there is no chance for the temperature or texture to go wrong. The freshness of the fish is so important that a bona fide maven—a
tsujin
—would have sushi only for lunch, as the morning’s catch ages as the day wears on.

Hard as it may be to believe, given those exacting conditions, sushi is really about the rice—or at least it was in the beginning, in the fourth century
B.C.
when, in Southeast Asia, salted rice was used to preserve fish. Around the eighth century
A.D.
, the practice reached Japan, and along the way, the combination became a delicacy in its own right.

Nowadays, sushi rice must be prepared with the same exactitude as is the fish. It must be short-grain (called
uruchimai
, it’s the kind used to make sake), seasoned only with salt, sugar, and rice vinegar, and tossed gently in a wooden bowl to cool to room temperature before serving. An exception is the so-called Nozawa style, pioneered by Los Angeles sushi chef Kazunori Nozawa, in which the rice is served very warm and softly falling apart, making the sushi a little more difficult to navigate with either chopsticks or fingers, the latter being the preferred way with all sushi. The other exception, of course, is sashimi: raw fish slices served without any rice at all, often as a sort of appetizer preceding a sushi meal.

Strict sushi orthodoxy also dictates that the sushi master, or
itamae
, must have closely
clipped fingernails, short hair, a cap, and for the most strict, no eyeglasses. (Also for the most finicky, the itamae may not be a woman—women’s hands are too warm, they say.) The cutting board should be of a hard, white wood, and the knives of the sharpest samurai steel, costing hundreds if not thousands of dollars, especially if custom-made. The protocol for dipping sushi mandates that it should be turned so the fish goes into the soy sauce, called
murasaki
in sushi terminology, with a dab of the fiery horseradish-like green wasabi added separately, never mushed into the sauce. And that wasabi root (never reconstituted powder, see
listing
) should be grated to order on a piece of sharkskin stretched over a frame; a wooden grater is an acceptable substitute, but metal is not. Between the cost of fresh, sushi-grade fish, and this catalog of exacting rules and equipment, it’s no wonder a sushi dinner can run to hundreds of dollars per person at the finest establishments.

There are four main styles of sushi.
Nigiri
(“hand-pressed”) sushi appears as colorful fish slices atop oblongs of rice, formed in the palm of the
itamae
’s hand. Because these are so unadorned, they are generally made with the very best quality of fish. Fish that may be a bit less perfect in color or cut goes into
maki
sushi, bits of fish inside the rice in nori-wrapped rolls. These include bite-size as well as giant rolls, called
futomaki
, and the cone-shaped hand rolls,
temaki
, that might be filled with strips of grilled salmon skin, yellowtail, spicy tuna tartare, or glazed eel.
Chirashi
(or “scattered”) sushi is an artful sort of rice bowl, with bits of various raw fish and shellfish, pickles, ginger, radish, and more, the lot painstakingly arranged, or sometimes just scattered loosely, over sushi rice.
Battera
sushi is an Osaka specialty, for which layers of mackerel and rice are gently pressed into a rectangular mold, before being cut out and served in ladyfinger-size portions.

Some of the most appealing and popular fish for sushi are tuna, the fatty belly (
toro
) being the prime choice; yellowtail, or
hamachi
; the chewy giant geoduck clam; silky globs of
uni
, the roe-producing gonads of the sea urchin; saltwater eel grilled with the sweet burnish of a teryaki-style sauce; and glassy, orange-red salmon roe, often topped with a raw quail egg yolk. In season, there may also be tiny, fried soft-shell spider crabs wrapped in rice for a succulent hand roll.