How to Make 12 Types of Sushi with 11 Different Fish | Handcrafted | Bon Appétit

I'm Kody agar chef/owner of nimble fish in Portland Oregon today I'm gonna break down these whole fish and turn them each into a single piece of needy so first thing we do is scale the fish basically I'm using a scaler to take the large scales off of this sea bream we're gonna scale the fish with this kind of up-and-down movement and what that does is it allows the scaler to kind of work its way in between the scales and pulls them away of gently rather than in a way that could kind of damage or break the meat it's very important especially to get all the scales around the cut lines which are gonna be at the top and the bottom of the fish and definitely are right behind the head in the tail area where you're gonna go through the spine on both sides to kind of start the cleaning process of the fish so this is Thai or red sea bream the Thai is a really rich piece of fish very mild in flavor but it has a lot of fat content and especially with the coco GMA process it creates a bunch of umami within the fish this is a Saki 3 line grant again pretty similar process to the red sea bream we're just gonna try to take the scales off with as minimal amount of damage to the fish as possible yaki is a seasonal spring to early summer fish it's kind of similar to an ocean perch really nice full flavored white fish typically when you're eating white fish the flavors are pretty mild and it's almost more of a textural fish but the e sake has both great texture and a lot of flavor for a white fish this is takabe yellow striped butter this is coming from Tokyo Japan summer seasonal fish really nice fatty fish the fish is being stored on ice so when we scale the fish it's nice to keep it roughly the same temperature on ice it also keeps the meat a little bit firmer while you scale the fish to hopefully create less potential for damage this is Kim a seasonal item between summertime and also early January in the winter he may is a really tender fatty white fish that is coming from Chiba Japan one of the best fish that we serve that so with the skin on this is chinko really short season young gizzard shad this is coming from Shizuka scaling this fish with my debe it's a relatively fragile fish the scales come off relatively easy so I kind of just can pull them off with the back of my knife and it's definitely important to take the scales off the fish this one in particular because we're gonna serve the skin scales are definitely not something that you want to be eating both because they're kind of for a sanitary reason and then it's just not a pleasant mouth bite these are owashi sardine a lot of people refer to them as a fishy fish but I just feel like they're a little bit more oily and when prepared properly they're not fishy at all they do just taste like all the fat and full flavor that they have to offer this is OG this is horse mackerel coming from Kyoto also a season is going to be spring to early summer the og is cutting really nice right now it has a great fat content one of the reasons we're using it right now this is shima og so first I'm going to cut the top and bottom fin off just so that I have easier access to cut the scales off and to get a part of the fish off that is typically a little bit more for a sanitary purpose this one I'm gonna cut the scales off instead of using the scaler they have really fine scales it's just a little bit easier and cleaner to do it this way I'm trying to get in between the scales and the skin without cutting through the skin with the knife you have to keep the bevel angle of your knife flat relative to the fish skin as you make it nice like light sawing back and forth as you move across the fish here are the scaled fish now we're going to fillet them and get them ready for preparation so for the cleaning and filleting process I'm gonna take off the head and tail first then we're gonna remove the guts and then clean out the bloodline and get it ready for filleting we're gonna reserve the most usable meat towards the head the sinew kind of concentrates in the fish anyway and we won't use that first little triangle but we definitely want to the best starting point for the largest filet that we can't have we definitely reserved the head it's great for grilling sometimes or stock so this is the filet process of the fish I'm gonna basically be taking that first right side off staying as close to the bones as possible to create the least amount of waste left on the bones it's definitely very technique-driven making very clean cuts and staying as close to the bones as possible is a big part of it and really trying not to break the meat fish is fairly fragile and tends to want to break at the seams of the muscle rather easily so making clean precise cuts definitely helps in that so this is gonna be a three-piece fillet by Japanese standard the bones are considered a portion of the fillet and both sides are considered a fillet this is the king made a golden ice snapper again we're taking off the tail and the head and the guts out first prior to filleting the head and the guts are connected through their internal system if I just cut through the spine I'm able to keep that all intact and pull it out all at once so we're always gonna fillet a specific side of the fish by Japanese standard they're always stored facing the left side so we're gonna fillet the right side first because it receives the most stress because it's taking all the weight of the fish due to the way that it's packaged we take the bones out of this fish post filleting actually as we prepare to make the final stages before the needy process this is the e sake three line grunt we're gonna fillet this similar to the other fish head and tail off cuts out and then three-piece fillet so the bones on the yaki tend to be a little bit more rigid so takes a little bit more pressure and if I tap the back of my knife to get through the bones it's gonna create less pressure and a quicker cut than if i sat there and tried to saw through the spine ice hockey is not super popular but it's also not uncommon to see this fish either I would say in New York and LA this time of year you're gonna see it a lot not so much in the rest of the states this is the Shima og and trevally Jack coming from Oh Etta I would say it's not super popular but it is right now aquacultured fish so it has started to become popular this one however is tenon or wild which is definitely a lot more rare I don't think you see wild Chima og at many sushi bars aquaculture refers to basically a farmed fish the difference in flavor between farmed fish and wild fish is going to be fat content and flavor of fat farm fish might have more fat content but they're definitely lacking the character that the wild fish have wild fish fat it definitely tends to be more sweet and have a lot more like variation in flavor this is the takabe yellow striped butter this is also going to be a three piece fillet size definitely I don't think matters in the filleting until you get to something that's much larger for instance maybe a tuna or something that's much smaller like the shank Oh a lot of people tend to like fattier portions of fish a lot of that is going to be coming from the bottom hemisphere of the fish or the belly side each fillet has a top Hemisphere and a bottom hemisphere the top hemisphere tends to be a little bit more lean and sturdy and less tender but the belly side can have a little bit more fat content and a little bit more on the tender side a lot of times fat adds sweetness and definitely it holds a lot of umami up the fish this is a G horse mackerel and this one is relatively similar to the other fish the only thing different is it has a hard scale kind of similar to the Shima og and we're going to cut that off however this has already been scaled with the back of my knife previous to cutting this hard scale off outside of that it's going to be roughly the same it's a three piece fillet both sides and the bones on G is definitely a very common fish you'll see at most sushi bars these days a lot of times it's carried year-round in his farm these ones however happened to be in season I really love oh gee it's probably one of my favorite fish actually texturally it has a nice little crunch and snap to it and it really has great flavor as far as it being a mackerel at almost all mackerels to having really great flavor this one tends to be on the milder side for the mackerel but definitely a lot of good flavor and a lot of good fat content as well these are owashi sardine we're gonna fillet this one a little bit different than the previous ones still the same process for cleaning removing the head taking out the guts however we're going to leave the tail on this time because it helps in the filleting process we're gonna cut two incisions on the bottom and basically fillet it with our hands by pulling the spine and the bones out really gently to try to get as many of the bones out of the sardine as possible at the end we're going to end up with a one piece fillet so the two fillets are attached together and this is going to create a better medium for me to do the curing process so this is the Shenko this fish is going to be a little bit different than what we've been doing so far it's going to be a two piece fillet so we're gonna clean it cut it into a single fillet and also make sure that all the scales and fins are off because we're gonna serve the whole thing as is once it's been pickled or prepared all the other bones that are in this fish stay in this fish and through the pickling process will soften up definitely is a little bit more difficult very tedious it takes a little bit more skill to cut this fish being that it's so small after I fillet the fish I'm going to shake it off in the ice water one it creates a shinier skin and it also cleans off the fish from anything that I've left on there after the filleting and cleaning process this is the tachi you--oh or belt fish it's a three piece fillet however we're gonna not use all of it at the same time so I'm gonna cut it in half first we're gonna cut the dorsal fin off which runs the entire back of the fish it doesn't have another fin on the bottom side of the fish as most fish do touch geo is a relatively meaty fish really dense pretty oily you keep the skin on it there's no scales on this fish really and it has a huge amount of fat between the skin and the meat so another reason why we're reserving the skin the fish the guts are pretty standard there's always like a cavity for where that area is so very easy to find and pretty much you want to get rid of everything that's in there you do have some things that you might reserve from the innards from fish from time to time such as the heart or the liver or eggs if they're there sometimes we'll open up the guts and there will be whole fish in there like they just ate right before they got caught and so here we're just filleting the fish just like we would in either of the other fish that we've filleted however this one's been cut in half prior to filleting tachi o is a very thin fish to begin with so the fillets or the sides are very thin I would say at max they're about three quarters of an inch thick the tateo is kind of one of the harder fish to fillet that we're working on today just due to the fact that it's long and requires long precise strokes also the bones are relatively delicate been easy to cut through and damage the other side of the fillet the long precise strokes are definitely something that you learn over time and getting comfortable with the way it feels to fillet a fish but being very clean with your cuts is kind of something that is pretty standard practice for being a sushi chef I move this fillet closer to the edge of the cutting board because it just sits in a funny way once that first side is taken off and so I can get a better angle at it by cutting from below the cutting board level this is the our tuica bigfin reef squid what we're gonna do to start is remove the ears and skin from the mantle which is kind of the main portion that we're going to be using for sushi right here I'm just using my knife to kind of start an area that I can get the skin away from the mantle and remove the ears in the skin I'm pushing my hand in between the mantle and the skin to kind of peel the skin away from the main squid tube or mantle so the goal in this process is basically to separate the usable parts and take the skin off anything we're going to be reserving for use for sushi for the most part we're going to use just the mantle for the sushi the legs will be prepared in a different way and we'll use them for some of the oats umami or small courses of our omakase a program squid is a pretty unique product for sushi there's probably the most variety of squids than any other like single fish that we serve for sushi based on the season I already Iike in particular is going to be a summer squid definitely very prized for its texture it also tends to be relatively sweet and it's packed with a ton of natural loom I mean at this point you pull the legs out of the mantle with all of the innards attached to them the ink sac ruptured fits whole we can harvest it and salt it and basically preserve it for sauces you can add it to pasta dough if you'd like it's actually really easy to clean literally rinses off with water relatively easy at this point I'm trying to separate the liver however it was a little weak and so we're not gonna reserve it and use it the liver is pretty popularly used in Japan to make a small plate called Shia cotta which is basically salted and fermented squid liver the tentacles and the head are attached will basically take the beak out and some hard cartilage pieces that we have to remove any balls before we can cut away all the usable pieces there's definitely not a lot of knife work on this one mostly we're just trying to pull things apart in a clean way and then basically separate them into the usable pieces and pull the skin off so majority of it is handwork I just pulled out the quill of the squid which is going to be basically like its spine it's just more or less like a large piece of cartilage that kind of helps keep the structure of the squid otherwise it would be pretty squishy and formless now there's a layer of skin and actually is what was starting to form were eggs for reproduction as well so there's a layer of skin on the inside a couple layers of skin on the inside of the Arika as well which needs to be taken off which I'm gonna use my towel to kind of start that process and then I'll use my hands to kind of pull majority of the rest of the way it definitely wants to break and pull apart in like strands however which can make it kind of difficult it really just depends on how fresh the squid is I'm able to get this stuff off pretty easy because the squid is super fresh and all of its coming off in relatively large pieces we have squid that we serve as a whole squid for a single piece of nahin tea and we also have squid like this that can basically you can harvest about 30 to 40 pieces of media off of this guy there's a little hard part on the inside of the mantle which is going to be those two pieces you see about a third into the mantle on either side and that bottom portion of the mantle is going to be relatively hard and crunchy as well so we'll remove all of that so here are all the filleted finish now let's get them prepared for the case right here I'm kind of separating the fish into different curing processes on the saw do it's something that we can solve fish or store vegetables on that allows breathability but the fish on the right saw do these are all fish that I'm going to lightly salt and pull a little bit of the water and unwanted flavor out of the fish the one on the left also is going to get like a medium to light salting again to pull out water and unwanted flavor and then it's going to get a vinegar rinse so a lot of these are pretty quick anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes on the salt the Shenko however is going to be more of a suji man which is going to be like a vinegar cure so the salt process on that's going to be depending on size anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes for light to medium salt and then we're going to also vinegar for roughly that same time what I'm doing right here with the Shenko is i salted the Zotto itself first for the skin side of the Shenko and then we'll come through with a light dusting of salt from the flesh side as well the salt that we try to use for this process is going to be something that's going to be a larger grain a bit more mineral driven just for the Cure process that larger salt helps from actually making the fish taste salty and rather more of something that's pulling things out of the fish this is a pretty traditional way to get sushi ready for service I would say it's a pretty standard practice amongst like people that are preparing out of my sushi we definitely do a more curated and cured sushi style or at oh my style for sure there's definitely things that are served super fresh as well but we serve very simply and really let the rice and the fish kind of shine right here we're gonna basically after that Keane Mae has been salted for a little bit and gotten a chance to sweat and pull a little bit of water out we're gonna cook the skin side with hot water which is called Yubikey and then throw it really quickly into an ice bath ice bath is there to immediately shock and stop the cook process so the flesh of the fish is not going to be cooked at all however the skin is going to be cooked through enough to the point where it's edible here we're just gonna Pat it dry and now it's ready for service so the tuna I'm gonna take socco's off of it or blocks that would be ready for sushi however we're gonna do a cure on this one as well it's gonna be a soy zu k or show yuzu k so we're gonna take these soccers cook them on the outside really quickly or lightly with hot water again Yubikey style and then put them in a soy marinade for roughly nine to ten minutes we're gonna do a show use UK process for this so show you is just the word for soy sauce in Japanese and it's going to be the basis of our marinade it's gonna be a majority soy sauce we're gonna use a little bit of meeting or sweet sake and a little bit of regular sake as well in both cases the sake the alcohol has been cooked off so I'm eating sake are kind of some of the major fundamental key ingredients for seasoning in Japanese cuisine different ratios can change the flavor profile pretty dramatically and definitely a lot of its used in the curing processes as well I would say like our soy sauce is gonna be less sodium just due to the fact that we fortify it with a bunch of other things so we add ingredients to it and prepare it in a certain way through heating and adding like kombu and katsu oh and sake and meeting so it basically gets thinned out and would be equivalent to being less sodium so the Shima G and the e sake have now been salted and they've sweated a little bit and a little bit of the moisture has been pulled out from each fish and now we're just rinsing him really quickly in a bath of ice water basically to remove the salt we're trying to make sure that all the salt did was pull a little bit of moisture out of the fish and unwanted flavor and not season the fish now we're gonna do the vinegar washing process for the hikari Amano so all of the sardines and og that have been filleted and salted now have been sweated for a little bit and we're gonna rinse the salt off with a little bit of vinegar in the right bowl there is a vinegar that's been diluted with a little bit of water and that's going to be for the marinade for the shink oh this is the sardine you're rinsing in the full-strength vinegar just really quickly to remove excess salt we're doing the takabe now and this is going to be a seared piece where we cook the skin via heating up a good amount of salt so heavy salt on the skin and then we're going to use a torch to heat the salt which will in turn cook the skin without leaving any char marks so the skin looks relatively fresh and alive still so the salt is in turn gonna do the cooking rather than the torch once the heat is applied the skins gonna kind of tighten up it'll definitely contract and then we'll also then like kind of relax right after it gets to the point where it's been cooked to the point where we can throw it in the ice bath for our purpose we're gonna serve the skin on this one so it's nice to have it at a nice tender edible point before we actually make the sushi with it there's definitely different schools of thought on it some people do it to order kind of after they cut the fish and we do do that with some of the fish as well we do that with the e sake where we leave the skin on raw and we will cook it in its entirety right before we make the needd but this one is just a little bit nicer done this way because we don't have to necessarily sear it for the service of the needy portion most of the fish that you see are pretty traditionally served with the skin on the skin definitely adds another characteristic of flavor and on top of that preserves a layer of fat between the skin and the meat with the tachi oh we are gonna do the salt cooking as well so heavy salt on the skin and letting the torch heat the salt to in turn cook the skin now the Margaret asuke is ready for service it's been marinated for about nine minutes and now we're just gonna Pat it dry and it's ready for the case the marinade is in a slightly seasoned Saku of fish but it's also gonna create who mommy or more flavor or depth of flavor in the fish so here we are gonna take the shank oh that's been salted now it's been salted for about 20 minutes we're gonna rinse it in full strength vinegar so we remove any excess salt and now it's going in the vinegar with a little water dilution for the marinade process for about 20 minutes this is the tachi o or belt fish here we're just gonna Pat it dry and now it's ready for service so this is the Thai or red sea bream and now we're gonna do a Kogi may process the copa GMA process is gonna be basically a kelp in salt cured process so I'm gonna take a towel and get it moist with a little bit of sake and I'm going to rinse the kombu of its excess salt with the sake then we're gonna take the fillets of this fish skin them lightly salt both sides and press it between the kombu for about a hour and a half for service this is a really traditional technique it's definitely something that creates a ton of umami within the fish via the kelp and the salt and changes the texture to being a little bit more firm some people go really mild on the Koh bougie Mae which is I would say we do at an hour and a half some people would put it in for almost an entire day it'll turn into the texture of almost like a gummy bear at that point so here are all the case ready cuts now let's turn them into sushi so now we're gonna make the tamago tamago is a japanese-style egg omelet first we're gonna separate the whites from the yolks then we're going to whip the whites to almost a half meringue and incorporate the seasoned dashi dashi is a Japanese stock kind of the staple or fundamental for Japanese cooking that is made with typically kelp and dried fish and the dashi for this is that plus seasoning via meeting or sweet sake sugar and soy sauce as well then we're gonna emulsify the vegetable oil with the egg yolk and then combine both the whites and the yolks together so tamago translates literally to egg it doesn't even necessarily mean a chicken egg but it's definitely a older practice the style of omelet that we make is a dashi Maki which is basically a layered and flipped egg omelet so we're gonna slowly heat the pan and kind of a low to medium heat just to make sure that it's absorbing as much of the oil that we have in there due to the fact that it's not a nonstick pan and it is a stainless steel on the inside of the pan so now the pan seasoned and we're gonna remove the oil and wipe it out and prepare to make the omelet tamago has kind of traditionally been a way that people can rate or figure out how good a sushi restaurant is traditionally people would sometimes order tamago as their first bite when they arrived at the sushi bar and if the sushi chef could prepare a proper dashi Maki or tamago then they would continue to order more pieces nowadays tamago is served at the end kind of like a finishing or dessert piece so pretty much we're taking this omelet and pouring it layer by layer and flipping it and it's going to get folded over twice before we get to this kind of base shape and then it's going to get pushed forward to the front of the pan we're gonna continue to pour layers and push the egg batter underneath the previously made omelette and continue that process over and over until we're out of the egg so we're just gonna be flipping that egg over and over I think a lot of people think that this is the hardest part but realistically the hardest part for me is just controlling that heat and making sure that that thing's not sticking I would say that we pour about eight or nine layers for ours and then we'll end up with almost eighteen layers that way due to the amount of flips now I'm just making sure that the outside is nice and sealed up with the heat so that it holds its structure after the tamago has been finished I'm going to pull it off onto the machi soo which will give it some air and give it time and availability to kind of set up and finish now we're gonna start slicing the cuts for the needy needy sushi is going to be fish over rice sashimi is going to be sliced fish without rice and Tamaki is going to be a hand roll or personal sushi roll so all these fish that we have we're gonna take a slice off of each of them and get them ready to make needing each fish is a little bit different as far as what thickness and size of cut we're gonna make or whether we're gonna score it or not score it just depends on the texture and what the fish is there's definitely a standard of how you should be cutting your sushi should always be against the grain you don't want the grains to be elongated so it kind of depends on the fish or what side of the fillet you're working on to which direction I'm going to cut it here I'm gonna do a good amount of scoring of the squid it's gonna make the texture for the bite a little bit more appealing especially since it's a thicker squid and it's also gonna bring out a little floral aroma of the squid as well you want all of our sushi to look uniform but we don't want to put a lot of pressure on the rice the rice should stay nice and fluffy and light definitely shouldn't be something that you have to work at chewing when it's in your mouth and in order to do that some of the fish are gonna be a little bit stiffer and need just a little bit of scouring to lay on the sushi properly without having to really mold it with your hands you should try to do one fluid stroke to make one long cut for the needy and then kind of turn your angle right at the end to cut straight down to the board if you're cutting off of the skin however it's a little bit different which we tend to keep the skin on because we have a lot of fish that once the skins off looks fairly similar it's a easier way for us to differentiate the fish I'm using my Yanagi but for this the Yanagi bow has been designed specifically for slicing of sushi this is the tattoo or bell fish I'm just gonna remove the ribs really quickly and then it's ready to cut for sushi as well this is one that we haven't cooked the skin on but the skin is going to be served and typically for service we would torch that immediately prior to when making the IDI the ratio of fish to rice is super important so we don't make a huge size of sushi but we also don't make a small sushi either I feel like sushi should be a single bite and it shouldn't be uncomfortable in your mouth whether it's too big or too small so here's the dashi Maki we typically like to do a nice thick cut for the egg omlet and now it's time to make the needy so make me giddy we need rice the Netta or fish wasabi and a little seasoning depending on the variety of fish so our rice we use a premium short grain cal rose rice we also use a red vinegar for the seasoning in the red vinegar is a little bit of meeting salt and sugar and that's pretty much the main ingredients so here we're making the needy one at a time I think the goal in making this needy is to make something that's visually appealing not to press the rice too much keep it nice and light and fluffy upon making the needy and then just making sure that the ratio of rice to fish is proper so I'm going to wet my hands with water in order to keep the rice from sticking to my hands and then I'm gonna add with sabi to the fish introduce the rice and now start forming the rice in a way that keeps it light and fluffy so in the hand motion through the making of the needy I'm constantly trying to separate the rice from a shape and make it nice and airy in between the rice kernels and then form it again throughout each motion until we've done pretty much both sides of the fish I turn it once or twice and then get the pressure proper and then hopefully the shape is right as well basically I'm squeezing or more or less forming the needy with as little amount of pressure as possible the second hand comes into play to kind of press the sushi almost but at that same time you're kind of separating the rice again to create more air and then there's a final like top and side squeeze to get the proper shape at the end everyone kind of makes new et I think a little bit differently I try to use a pretty traditional technique with mine that was little and as quick as possible I still don't feel like a hundred percent competent at it I feel like I'm constantly trying to improve this skill like on a daily basis I think that the sushi process for me could be a lifelong process in general striving to be as good as I can possibly be knowing that I'm never gonna be able to do it perfectly I think when someone comes into our restaurant I just really want them to have a really lovely experience and enjoy something that we enjoy providing for people and curating on a daily basis it's really nice to see people enjoy the things that you do and this is the process from whole fish to final plating

Channel: Bon Appétit

Views: 5,772,463

Rating: 4.9094515 out of 5

Keywords: fish, handcrafted, sushi, how to sushi, make sushi, how to make sushi, japanese food, sushi roll, making sushi, how sushi is made, sushi chef, sushi japan, best sushi, japanese sushi, butcher fish, butcher, how to fillet a fish, how to butcher fish, butchering fish, sushi fish, cutting fish, how to cut fish, how to cut fish for sushi, butchery, how to butcher, how to slice fish, fish butchery, scaling fish, how to scale fish, tomago, omelet, food, bon appetit

Id: AoktpjjCLdM

Length: 32min 38sec (1958 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 13 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Supervisions]

This is a good video for people who wonder why Good sushi is so expensive

[u/munklunk]

This should be the gold standard for instructional food videos. Editing was perfect, narration was on point, and skil was on full display. Thanks for this.

[u/ieabu]

Love this one. Very informative with calm and smooth narration and editing. No jokes, no annoying music and cuts.

[u/eo10998]

His voice reminds me of the Casually Explained guy

[u/katastrophyx]

I love sushi preparation videos. This one was excellent. Thank you for sharing.

[u/AllEncompassingThey]

Knife goes in, guts come out.

[u/Lance_Henry1]

Know what this video needs? More fish scaling.

[u/Tufflaw]

For sushi fans, or really anyone who likes documentaries about true artisans, I highly recommend the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, it's about an 80 year old man who is purported to be to best sushi chef in the world. He runs a sushi restaurant located inside of a Tokyo subway station which has three Michelin stars.

Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1UDS2kgqY8

[u/sauteslut]

Here's one for real sushi fans

https://youtu.be/bDL8yu34fz0