Salad Maki is a kind of rolled Sushi literally with the ingredients of a salad inside. It is usually found at Sushi restaurants that are more oriented toward families and reasonably priced, such as Kaiten Sushi restaurants (revolving Sushi restaurants), not so much at more sophisticated and fancy restaurants. Salad Maki is certainly not traditional Japanese Sushi, but it may be one of the most loved “arranged” Sushi rolls in Japan.
Sushi Cake (寿司ケーキ) is not typical Japanese food you find at Japanese restaurants at all. Before anything, it is not a dessert. Sushi Cake is Sushi Rice molded and decorated with fish and vegetables so it looks like a cake. It is very colorful and festive, and a great dish for a celebration of some sort. It looks a little complicated, but it is quite easy to make it at home. Actually, it’s much easier than Sushi rolls. Besides, you may not even be able to find it at any shops or restaurants, so you may have to make it if you would like to try this dish.
Futomaki is a kind of sushi roll or maki sushi with a variety of fillings such as vegetables and seafood. It is much thicker than typical sushi rolls such as Tuna and Cucumber Rolls, and the fillings are often cooked and flavored. Seasoned sushi rice and filling of choice are rolled into a thick cylinder with a sheet of nori roasted seaweed.
Barazushi is a kind of sushi with a lot of vegetables mixed in. Bara means “scattered,” describing here that vegetables are mixed into the sushi rice. It is also called Gomokuzushi (vegetable sushi). It is most often prepared at home rather than served at restaurants and is another “mom’s home cooking” kind of dish everyone likes.
Sushi Rolls or Hosomaki are a very basic but popular sushi in Japan. Hoso means thin and maki means roll. We want to say “thin” because there are also thick rolls, Futomaki. While Futomaki has a lot of fillings such as cooked vegetables and sweet fish flakes, Hosomaki rolls only have one skinny filling inside. Because of the simplicity of ingredients and cooking technique, Hosomaki is suitable for home cooking as well as restaurant food.
Inarizushi (いなり寿司) is a kind of sushi or rice ball. Sushi rice is stuffed in seasoned Aburaage tofu pouches. Inarizushi is technically sushi, but it is not something you order at nice sushi restaurants. It is easily found at supermarket delis, but, as you know, home made is the best. Inarizushi is a very casual food and a perfect lunch for picnics because it’s best eaten right from your hands.
You hear people say, “I can’t eat sushi (raw fish), but I eat California roll.” California roll is so popular that even people who don’t want to try exotic ethnic food will eat it. It is made of pretty innocuous ingredients for sushi: rice, roasted seaweed (sushi nori), cucumber, avocado, and crab meat. No raw fish, and even the seaweed is hidden inside the roll.
Hand roll sushi is a very popular sushi dish in Japanese home cooking. You need Sushi Rice and sheets of roasted seaweed (sushi nori), but the rest of the ingredients can be just about anything imaginable.
Tuna salad and cucumber were used as fillings for this recipe here, but we also suggest smoked salmon and cream cheese, pan-fried rolled omelet (tamago-yaki), avocado, and lettuce. If you are a more advanced Japanese food person, of course you can use your favorite raw fish, too.
With all the ingredients laid out on the table, people can make their own hand rolls how they like as they eat. It is a perfect food for entertaining friends and families!
Sushi rice is the most important component of sushi making, yet very simple to make. Rice needs to be cooked a little harder for sushi rice than for regular steamed rice, so a little less water is used when cooking. When you master how to make sushi rice, you can make a variety of sushi dishes, such as hand rolls and California rolls.