Out Of Pocket

It's been a while since I whinged about my love for all things Japanese, and since my sister's been in Japan on a trip for the past week, I thought I was due a good whine. I also thought I was due some Japanese food (it always makes me feel healthy and redeemed, and I like to think it cancels out all the butterscotch pudding).

Inari-zushi is something I'd never tried before - basically it's seasoned rice in tofu pouches, and I'd been dying to give it a go for just about forever, but I had trouble finding the, uh, tofu pouches.

You see, when I made sushi I explained about living in a village overrun solely with alcoholics and the elderly, and inari pouches weren't much of an option (you can neither drink out of them nor... whatever it is that old people do). I'd more or less given up; unless tofu pouches dropped from the heavens and into my unresisting arms, I wasn't going to go too crazy over it. I could've always bought a block of tofu and cut a hole in it, but that wouldn't have been quite the same (not to mention that even tofu is probably a bit ambitious where I come from).

And then I moved a six hour drive away, to a university town where international students are common, and people think the North is some sort of widespread swamp over the entire upper half of England. Finding inari pouches wasn't really my main problem, haha, but all of a sudden I had options I'd never imagined.

And these are they! Weird crinkly soggy little things, but ohh they were delicious. I know I'd eat more or less anything if you told me they were Japanese, but these honestly took me by surprise - not to mention that I got to model them in my bento box with a rice ball from a batch I'd made and frozen a while back (a very poorly made batch: I don't think I was firm enough with them cause whenever I've had one they've collapsed all over the place).

These look nowhere near as impressive as regular sushi, but I think I enjoyed them even more - and damn, I'm proud of myself. I've come a long way. Literally.

Inari-Zushi

Japanese Cooking At Home - Hideo Dekura

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Tofu (bean curd) pouches (abura-gea), available from Asian grocery stores. Prepare these by placing them in boiling water for a minute, draining and squeezing out the excess oil.

2 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in water and finely chopped - I used regular

1/4 small carrot, peeled & finely chopped

240ml (1 cup) stock

120ml (1/2 c.) soy sauce

2 tbsp mirin

1 tbsp caster sugar

3 cups (720ml) sushi rice

1. Place bean curd pouches, mushrooms and carrot in a saucepan. Add stock, soy sauce, mirin and caster sugar, making sure pouches are submerged while cooking. Bring to the boil and simmer over a low heat for about 10 mins. Remove from heat and allow to stand while liquid is cool.

2. Remove bean curds and squeeze to remove excess water. Transfer to a chopping board and cut in half to make two pouches, then set aside (mine were already in half-pieces).

3. Mix mushrooms and carrot into the sushi rice with a rice paddle. Carefully open the pouches. With wet fingers, make a ball of rice and place it in the pouch. Press sides with fingers to make a pillow shape, and tuck the ends inside. Repeat with the rest.