The secret to real Japanese sushi

Miljuschka Witzenhausen travelled to Japan for 24Kitchen to discover real Japanese food. We spoke to her about her discoveries. For example, what is the secret to truly good sushi?

“The Japanese food we know here is mainly based on mass production. Few people know this, but 95 per cent of Japanese restaurants in the Netherlands are run by Chinese families. That’s fine, but you can’t really call it authentic Japanese cuisine.”

Sushi

“Sushi as we get it in a plastic tray is unthinkable there. In Japan, you eat sushi at the counter; it’s made fresh right in front of you, the rice is still slightly warm and should be at body temperature. Another very important thing: you eat the sushi the way the chef prepares it. So with soy sauce or without soy sauce, with wasabi or without wasabi—you don’t add your own twist to it.”

Wasabi

“What we know as wasabi—the green stuff from a tube—is nothing more than green-coloured, grated horseradish. Wasabi should actually be a protected name, just like prosciutto, because real wasabi only grows in a limited number of places.”

Secret

“But the real secret to good sushi is definitely the combination of freshness and perfection. That actually applies to everything in Japanese cuisine. Everything you eat there is so fresh. For example, I also ate dancing squid. It’s cut so fresh that the tentacles are still moving on your plate, and when you eat it, you can still feel the suckers sucking on your tongue. It’s almost impossible to comprehend.”

“Perfection is also very important. Chefs here don’t simply do a four-year course and then become cooks. When you start working in a sushi restaurant, you may spend the first few years doing nothing but cooking rice until you’ve mastered that skill down to the finest detail. After that, you might be allowed to cut the herbs, and only when you can do that perfectly will you hopefully be allowed to learn how to cut the fish. Everything is done with so much attention that it’s almost impossible to match.”

Miljuschka in Japan can be seen every Monday at 10 p.m. on 24Kitchen, starting 25 February.