inari-zushi | GOURMANDE in OSAKA

Inari is the type of sushi contained in a sweetly soaked pouch of fried tofu. The pronunciation is Zushi in this word, inarizushi.
With season produce, they make a pleasant plant-based lunch.

I told you that so far the rainy season was a dry one, but that’s changing as we are reaching the end : It rains seriously !

I bought this. 油揚げ, abura age. They are slices of tofu, deep-fried.

Cut and they become little bags to contain your sushi.

My rice is a mix of mochigome (sticky rice) and genmai (brown rice) . Flavored with kurosu (black rice vinegar), very little salt and grated carrot.

I rinsed the abura age pouches with hot water to eliminate the excess of oil, then simmered them in a little sweet broth (shoyu soy sauce, kurozato black sugar, chili pepper and laurel). I don’t want mine too sweet.
Toppings : edamame fresh soy beans, fresh sweet corn, sweet green chili, carrot.

Served with kaiware daikon sprouts.

I won’t hide you the truth : the aliens have landed in Osaka yesterday… On my window.

(photos from wikipedia and this blog )

This is the most idiot-proof recipe of sushi :
稲荷寿司 inari-zushi. Rice bag sushi.
I don’t know how popular their are abroad, but there are one of the most common sort here. Rectangle shape in Kanto (Tokyo), triangle in Kansai (Osaka). It’s a pocket of abura-age, usu-age (the thin ones) :

It’s fried tofu. It’s sold that way in tofu stores or the tofu shelf of larger shops. The thing is they make a few sorts… and today, I didn’t pick up those you need for inari-zushi.
So normally, you flatten your abura-age with a baker’s pin. Then you pass them in boiling water to clean a little the oil. And you simmer them in a sweet broth (classically dashi, mirin, soy sauce, sugar).

I don’t like mine too sweet, so it’s soy sauce, sake and skin of yuzu citrus.

Steamed good rice (koshihikari), add (black) vinegar sauce.
Inari-zushi are often very simple and vegan. I made some with sesame, and others with carrot (red kintoki carrot).
You mix. And you fill the pockets of abura-age.
EA-SY ! A 2 yr old can do that.

BUG !!!!! I was unable to open my abura-age in pockets. They are 1 layer. No way !
So the abura-age had to be wrapped around, or nothing.

A monster is born. Sushizilla !

A female…

A herd ? MUUUUUMMMM !!!! We are invaded !?

The shape… well. It didn’t affect the taste. Fried tofu + sushi rice is a magic pair.
They were really delicious with a few drops of soy sauce nama shoyu on the back and a little wasabi between the ears. With a good pot of genmai cha tea to reheat that.

4 pieces (= 2 servings of rice)
Cal 549.5 F17.8g C74.2g P19.8g

I took the photos outside for the light, that’s why you can see the street in the back.