Hi everyone, welcome to Milan.
Right now we're in Ronin and I'm the hospitality manager,
my name is Aiyu. Ronin is a palace, a very characteristic
reality that includes various restaurants cocktail bars and the omakase sushi bar. Today we're opening
our doors to ItaliaSquisita, for you to meet the
great master Katsu Nakaji. Together with him,
we'll discover one of the great classics of the
Japanese cuisine: sushi. I'm now letting chef Nakagi
speak, I'm reminding you to activate the subtitles first,
since he speaks Japanese only. Hello, everybody. My name is Katsu Nakaji and I'm the fifth generation sushi chef
in Hatsunezushi restaurant, located in the Kamata district in Tokyo. It's been about 30 years since I started
managing the family restaurant, and this year
we're really happy to celebrate the 130th anniversary from the opening. In occasion of this memorable year,
I took the chance to start spreading my experience in Europe, as well,
starting right from Milan and I'm really glad
about the chance I was given. Today together with all of you,
friends of ItaliaSquisita, we're discovering the history and making sushi according to my vision. The word sushi appears for the first time more than 1000 years ago,
in the Heian period as an adjective and it meant 'very sour'. During those years, then when refrigerators still didn't exist, it was necessary to preserve one's own food among which meat and fish, and it was often fermented
with salt and vinegar and everything was eaten together with rice. So people used to eat these foods often exclaiming: "Sushii!", meaning
"It's so sour!". So, we'll start by introducing
the three key elements for sushi. First of all, rice (Koshihikari) and its cooking, then wasabi and its features, and eventually, the fish. Let's start with rice first: when we extract the rice, we're washing it twice
or three times with clean water. This will enhance the shininess
of the rice, it will remove the excess stickiness and will prevent the rice
from sticking too much. After we sufficiently remove impurities, we're allowing it to soak
in the fridge for six hours. This phase is very important in order to obtain a soft rice generally, and for sushi, it is a procedure that can't be avoided. We're then lighting the coal up inside this traditional oven called 'Kamado'. I think everyone knows this oven
as a barbecue grill. It was originally developed
in ancient Japan to cook the ideal rice on board of ships. Today, this kind of products are sold
all over the world as barbecue grills. When it reaches a temperature of 450-500°C, we're pouring rice and water into this very peculiar pot called Hagama and we're placing everything
inside the oven, adding weights in order to maintain pressure. The rice will be cooked in about 11 minutes and the good thing about this round hagama is that, thanks to its circular shape, it can uniformly receive the heat that
radiates from the surrounding environment thus creating the ideal condition
for cooking rice. Nowadays, the technology for cooking rice is very advanced and there's amazing appliances to make a spectacular rice,
at a professional level as well, used in the best restaurant,
be it a sushi one or not. I am personally a great lover
of Italian cooking, starting from pasta and mostly pizza, especially the Neapolitan one, so, about the question: "Why don't you use
a more comfortable medium to cook rice?" I think the answer
could be provided by the Neapolitan pizza specialists who keep using the wood oven and would smile at this kind of question just as if the answer was evident. After the rice is cooked, remove
the embers from the oven then lower the temperature
of the oven straight away and allow it to steam cook for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, the rice is finally done and at this point, we're taking the pot out and moving the rice
into a spruce wooden bowl. At this point, we're pouring a blend of rice vinegar and Akazu vinegar, made from sakè sediments and fermented for four years. Just like a great balsamic vinegar, during these for years of long maturation,
it develops a sweet and enveloping flavor. In addition,
we're adding a pinch of salt as well and using these three ingredients, we're creating a seasoning that is perfect for sushi rice. Allow me to talk to you about wasabi. First of all, the peculiarity of the root. Even though it can seem small, it takes about five long years
to reach these dimensions, it grows very slowly. So, we're going to remove the leaves with a knife and we're grating the root delicately and slowly, to exalt the rich aroma. the spiciness released in the air and furthermore, wasabi has excellent antibacterial properties that prevent food poisonings. It is an indispensable ingredient for the sushi. What's good about sushi is that you can try a lot of fish varieties. Anyway, today I'd like to focus on tuna, considered the king of fish in Japan. The Japanese people is one of the larger consumers and consequently, great researchers of tuna. Indeed, about 10 years ago,
the Kinki University started and successfully concluded a meticulous research
on the breeding of tuna and they discovered how,
differently from other kinds of fish which adapt their temperature
to that of the water in which they swim, tuna, being a fish that can't stop swimming
even when it's sleeping, continues to emit heat and keeps its minimum body temperature to 28°C, right when it's sleeping. So when it is sleeping and it's relaxed, the body temperature of a tuna is 28°C. It sometimes rose to about 40°C, but I abide by heating tuna
up to 28°C in my kitchen because it's the perfect temperature to obtain a perfectly soft meat. I firmly believe that,
in order to enhance at best the taste and quality of tuna, it should be served at this specific temperature. For the initial cut of the tuna filets, we're using the so-called Maguro-bōchō. It's a type of knife that is very peculiar and long and it is exclusively used for tuna. This particular blade is a gift from a great friend and tuna supplier whom, before gifting it to me, engraved the name of my wife as a symbol of good luck
for this new challenge in Italy. So, the cleaning is fundamental for both knife and cutting board,
and it's key to prepare a clean cloth, as well. This is because the meat of the tuna reacts to the contact with steel and starts the process of oxidization. If this process is skipped, the tuna will unfortunately be ruined
to the point of discarding it, so I would personally suggest
to carefully remove the metal from the tuna covering the rest of the unused block with care, using transparent film and storing it in the fridge, or else in ice. Please, do not skip this phase. We're using the three most representative
parts of the tuna, meaning: akami, chū-toro and ō-toro. Let's explain them in more detail. Let's start from akami ('red meat'), which would be
the dorsal/central part of the tuna and it's the part of the muscle
that the tuna uses the most when swimming and consequently, naturally less fat. However, it's a very tasty part of the tuna where a bit of acidity
and umami is concentrated. Next is chū-toro, meaning the medium-fat belly of the tuna, much loved by my Italian clients as it possesses an optimal balance between the lean and fat part of the fish. We're finally moving on
to the fattest part of the belly of the tuna, called o-toro in Japanese. It's surely the finest part of the tuna and occupies about 5%
of the body of the tuna. I really like to cook it in the old style meaning in the old days,
when fridges didn't exist, the fish would be quickly immersed in hot water in order to eliminate bacteria. After soaking the ventresca in hot water, we're marinating it in a bowl with soy sauce for about an hour. We're then blanching it quickly to dissolve the fat to the right point and give it a smoked aroma, which further exalts the flavor. We're then moving on to the cut
of the tuna into its different parts. We're using a knife
which is about 36 cm long, called in Japanese yanagiba, meaning 'willow leaf' for its long shape. First of all, being sushi handmade by ourselves, it's important to measure with our hands and mostly that the single slices don't go over four fingers length, indicatively. For what concerns the thickness of the akami and chū-toro slices, those vary depending on the consistency of the cut of the fish. Indeed, the thickness of the slices
of the various fish used for sushi depends on different factors such as freshness, humidity and presence of fat. In addition,
just as it's done when cutting wood, you need to pay attention
to the fiber of the muscle of the fish and it's important to slice it perpendicularly referring to the lines. In fact, if you get either the direction
or the cut wrong, you run the risk to accentuate
the veining and this can make the meat
harder than it should be. This is one of the secrets to prepare tuna optimally: respecting the lines. Then, when I start assembling the nigiri, I'm keeping the slice of fish
on the left hand and with the right I'm taking the rice. My restaurant rigorously serves according to
the omakase formula, meaning, you are totally trusting in me
starting from the menu, and I care for my guests offering my cuisine
with the perfect combination between ingredients and condiments. In all of this,
when I'm assembling the nigiri I'm adjusting the quantity of rice
I'm adding based on whom I find in front of me. The quantity can vary depending on the constitution of the person, the speed at which they chew, how many times they are chewing
before swallowing and so on. There's obviously a top limit and a bottom limit on quantity and on dimensions, but I believe it's my personal duty to make the experience of the guest as pleasurable as possible, respecting these margins. For what concerns the omakase formula, the chef cares for preparing each dish with the perfect dose of condiment, be it soy sauce or salt on the sushi. Instead, if you have the pleasure
of tasting sushi at home or at a restaurant but with all of the pieces already done, I would personally suggest you to pay lots of attention to the soy sauce. Pay attention not to add too much and mostly not to add it on top of the rice. This is because the rice absorbs much more sauce when compared to fish with the risk of 'killing'
the flavor of the fish apart from crumbling it apart. In my restaurant, Hatsunezushi, I encourage my guests to eat sushi rigorously with their hands in order to stimulate their curiosity just as if we were children again. So, turn the piece upside down and lightly immerse the fish part
in the sauce and, at the time of tasting it,
keep it upside down, so that the slice of fish can contact
the tongue directly. I personally learned from my dad and my grandpa that it's necessary to wait
three to five seconds before you start chewing. In this span of time, our body temperature allow the fat to melt. The tuna at a temperature of 28°C is introduced into our palate and with our 36°C temperature, we're further 'cooking' it and the final 'cooking' happens right when we start chewing and we're mixing
rice with fish into our mouth. I think this phase is the most exciting moment about eating sushi. In my restaurant, we serve together an aromatic finger bowl to clean your fingers with citrus slices inside, but I mostly add green tea. Hatsunezushi is a small restaurant handed down
starting from my great grandfather that since 130 years has been developing knowledge, art and tradition of sushi. I hope in my sushi you can appreciate the history. What's more,
nowadays there's various kinds of sushi. My hope is that the fusion between a classic sushi and a modern sushi that uses ingredients from different origins can generate innovative techniques and that the culture of sushi can spread increasingly in the world. Thank you very much.
