If you’re looking to Xmas gift a luxury experience to someone special, then raw fish could be the answer.
‘I did cut myself once.’ says Chef as he slices into the seabass. He tells us how badly and we all wince and instinctively draw back from the counter.
His knives are phenomenally sharp, they don’t simply cut the fish they slide through it like laser beams. He flips the seabass over and in one continuous stroke removes the skin so perfectly there is hardly a fragment of flesh on the skin and the main part is left silky smooth.
From there he cuts two wafer thin slices for each of us, adds a little chilli sauce and serves it up along with a bowl of soy. It is a fabulous fish, so fresh it might only need a defibrillator to bring it back to life. The flavour sophisticated and subtle, the texture remarkable.
Eight of us are on a sushi journey here at Gordon Ramsay’s Lucky Cat in Mayfair. The man himself is sitting over the way having a meeting, his Mt Rushmore looks still recognisable even in the low lighting.
Chef is also telling us all about fresh fish, what to buy and what to look for on the slab. Sashimi grade fish is always caught by hook and line and never net, so the fish is carefully handled and not bruised. Other details that he shares are a bit shocking, but sashimi is a serious business.
This masterclass is great. Like so many non-Japanese people I find sushi and sashimi both fascinating and mysterious, a whole different culinary world beyond my ken. As this class goes on though I feel empowered, able to casually say Shari, instead of rice, when I next eat Japanese.
Shari is the special rice you find in Nigiri, an oval-shaped mound of rice shaped by hand with the raw fish pressed on top. The rice is cooked in front of us, a special short grain rice that is dressed with sushi-zu vinegar after cooking whilst being waved at with a cooling bamboo fan. Here a rather non-traditional Rymans A4 plastic sheet is used, which works even better.
It’s extremely sticky, so we follow the chef in dipping our hands in water and then clapping them together so the excess water flies off. Now we can each take a golfball sized scoop of rice out of the ‘hangiri’ wooden bowl, quickly shape it and add the fish.
Nigiris should be eaten still warm, as soon as it’s handed to you. You eat it with your hands, not chopsticks, and the rule is to dip it fish side only into the sauce so the rice doesn’t get wet, and eat it fish side down so your taste buds get fish first and rice second.
It’s all good fun as we all find our skills sorely lacking and the rice going everywhere. We cannot emulate the chef’s speed and precision, but the results are still tasty if totally unacceptable visually.
All the time the chef is telling us things; about wasabi (we try both the standard nose burning paste, as well as the more delicate freshly grated root), the fish, about tradition and also about knives. So many knives, each designed for a specific job. He slices tuna, salmon, sea bass and more for us, each exactly the same thickness and only by eye, his movements precise and perfect.
Even his blowtorch action is impressive, not cooking the delicate fish at all but slightly searing the very edge. A second too long and a piece of first class sashimi could be cat food.
Finally we try our hand at Maki rolls, both normal and inside out. I love maki, it’s got everything I like and is also quite filling. A bamboo rolling mat is the tool needed. We spread rice just enough to cover a sheet of Nori (dried seaweed), again though the rice is sticky so it’s not easy, most of the rice ends up sticking to me.
We sprinkle black sesame seeds on the rice, lay slivers of salmon and avocado down the centre, then roll it all into a cylinder ‘Don’t compress the rice too much’ we are warned, ‘the maki must be delicate’.
Taking the tube out of the mat, we slice it into small cylinders and stand them on end for the traditional presentation, served with wasabi, soy sauce and pickled ginger. Very, very tasty.
We then make inside out Maki, the rice on the exterior. This gets extremely messy and mine are only saved by chef who restores order in moments.
It’s been a remarkable experience, a communal fun time sitting around the chef’s table watching, learning, trying and eating. We each leave with a luxurious booklet that contains lots of information about sushi as well as some recipes. And a gift, I won’t spoil the surprise on that.
Now I must resharpen all my knives and head to the fishmongers
The Sushi Masterclass experience at Lucky Cat is available to book here. A great gift idea.
www.gordonramsayrestaurants.com/lucky-cat/at-lucky-cat/