It drops, it doesn't drop, it drops… Can't quite keep the sushi between your chopsticks? And did it happen to land on your favorite white
shirt? No worries! You can also eat sushi with your hands or a fork.
Finland's first sushi restaurant was founded in Helsinki in the mid-1980s. Since then, sushi restaurants have been popping up all over Finland at a steady pace. Sushi is popular because it's healthy, light and delicious.
The basic ingredient in sushi is rice. Sushi rice recipes instruct you to rinse the rice several times first. Then the rice is cooked, allowed to steam, and seasoned with rice vinegar, sugar and salt, among other things. Good sushi rice is easy to shape and its role is crucial to making successful sushi.
Bubbles as a companion
Wondering what to drink with sushi? Does white wine, red wine or sparkling wine go best with it? The flavor profile of sushi is fascinatingly diverse. Soy sauce is salty and has umami. Sushi also has flavors with more kick, and some fillings are fatty. Vegetable-based sushi, on the other hand, is often delicate in flavor. A perfect match for these different flavors is the bubbly Katse sparkling wine, also called "gorilla bubbly." It's an excellent pairing for all types of sushi.
You can find price and product information here
Do you know the most common types of sushi?
Maki is a small, bite-sized sushi that's easy to eat even for beginners. It's a roll wrapped in seaweed that's cut into appropriately sized pieces. Maki is most often filled with cucumber, tuna and salmon.
Nigiri has an oval-shaped pressed sushi rice base topped most often with fish: salmon, tuna, whitefish or pike-perch. Nigiri can also be topped with shrimp, avocado or even egg.
Uramaki is recognizable by having the rice on the outside and seaweed on the inside. It's rolled into a roll using a bamboo mat and cut into bite-sized pieces.
Temaki is a distinctive sushi form. Its Japanese name means hand-made, and true to its name, it's hand-rolled into a cone shape. Making it doesn't require a bamboo mat – the fillings are wrapped in a nori sheet. Temaki is fun to make at home too, because only your imagination limits what you fill it with. Gather your own favorites, wrap them tightly in a nori sheet into a cone and enjoy.
So how do you eat sushi?
A sushi meal is set with chopsticks and small, often ceramic dishes into which everyone pours their own portion of soy sauce. In addition to soy sauce, wasabi and ginger are served with sushi. Wasabi is extremely strong, so a word of warning to the uninitiated! It's best to start tasting wasabi cautiously and use chopsticks to place only a small amount on top of the sushi. Some also mix wasabi into the soy sauce.
Maki is an easy bite that's dipped in soy sauce and eaten. Nigiri, on the other hand, is not meant to be completely dipped in soy, as many do. The risk is that the soy flavor will mask all other flavors. Additionally, too much soy will soak the sushi rice so that the nigiri no longer holds together. Only the surface of the nigiri should touch the soy. This requires some practice and dexterity. Ginger is meant to balance flavors between sushi pieces.
Uramaki is a great choice for your first sushi, especially if it's filled with avocado and cucumber. Dip it in an appropriate amount of soy and it stays together and is thus easy to eat.
Temaki is large in size and neat to eat because it's eaten with your hands. When it's rolled tightly, the fillings stay inside. Temaki is perfect for an evening with friends. Everyone can choose their favorite fillings and assemble their own temaki.
The perfect drink crowns a sushi meal
Katse sparkling wine is a spot-on choice for sushi and other savory bites. You'll recognize this sparkling wine by the label featuring a gorilla with an expressive gaze. Katse sparkling wine is packaged in a stunning black bottle that stylishly complements the minimalist setting of a sushi meal. The citrusy and medium-acidic sparkling wine enhances the flavors of sushi, with hints of grapefruit and apricot.
It's a Katse you won't forget.
You can find price and product information here
What if you made sushi yourself?
It's a great way to spend time together with friends. Invite friends to a sushi party. Get the ingredients and write the sushi rice recipe on Japanese-style paper. The drink choice for the evening is easy: Katse sparkling wine works throughout the entire evening: as a welcome drink, as a social drink while making sushi, and at the sushi meal as a fresh and light drink with the delicious flavors of sushi. Set your gaze on sushi and enjoy!
