Prawn Recipes For Shrimp Nigiri (ebi)



Of the numerous prawn recipes, this page covers nigiri sushi with shrimp for the topping over

sushi rice.

At your local Japanese market, you may find packaged shrimp (ebi) and ready to use for home made prawn recipes. If you cannot find ready prepared ebi, then you'll need to purchase the uncooked type and prepare them for this recipe.

Step by Step Prawn Recipes Nigiri Sushi

Nigiri zushi on wood platter

Ebi Nigiri Zushi
Ingredients for 10 individual pieces:

*8-10 pieces of medium to large uncooked shrimp (preferably Tiger Prawns).
8-10 wooden skewers (kabob sticks will do).
1 teaspoon salt
Or if you can obtain cooked and prepared shrimp 1 package.
2 Cups (about 16 oz.) Seasoned cooked rice. Use the rest for rolls and other sushi.
1 teaspoon of wasabi for making the sushi and dipping with soy sauce.

*Usually sold without heads but if your local fish market has them with heads that is actually prefered indicates that it is very fresh.


Prepare Shrimps (ebi)

1. Wash them in running water.

2. Place skewers into the cut end of the tail towards the tail fin if you are preparing tails without heads. Place the skewers into the tail from underneath and push toward the tail fin if you have whole body. This keeps the tails straight when boiling them. Otherwise they'd curl.

3. Add salt to a medium or large sauce pan of water and bring to boil.

4. Add shrimps into the pot and simmer till a few start to float and appear reddish orange.

5. Empty contents into a strainer or collander under running cold water to prevent further cooking.

6. Remove the skewers and cut off the heads.

7. Remove the shell and legs and tail fins.

8. Cut the under side of each long ways and open the halves.

9. In the cut, locate the vein which is a dark grey line and remove with fingers. Rinse after this step. Prepare to assemble the ebi with sushi rice.
Before you start, make sure you mixed 'tezu' in a medium sized bowl for your hands. Its so that the rice will not stick to your hands. Tezu is cold water in a hand fitting bowl with rice vinegar sprinkled into it (about 2 table spoons of rice vinegar per 1 cup of water)

Have your sushi rice cooking or prepared in advance.

Prepare wasabi in a small dish. If you have the powder form follow directions on the label. Add COLD water to make into dough ball like thickness.

Have plates out so there is somewhere to place and serve the nigiri zushi.

Use Tezu

Wet both hands with tezu mixture so rice won't stick to hands. Use before making each nigiri.

make shrimp nigiri

Take ebi in the left hand (if right handed).

Right hand index finger takes a bit of wasabi on the finger tip. Spread the wasabi in a downward motion.

nigiri sushi add rice oval nigiri sushi add rice oval on to shrimp

Take an oval of rice in the right hand from the sushi rice tub and place it onto the wasabi side.

nigiri sushi press rice

With the left thumb placed in the center of the rice oval, carefully turn over the sushi so the rice is now down and the shrimp is up.

nigiri sushi form

With the right hand thumb and index finger, form the rice oval sides.

Place the shrimp nigiri zushi onto a small plate. Make another and place it next to it. This is the nigiri presentation. Typically served in pairs.

Prawn recipes note for this page:

Shrimp is sometimes called prawn. The term is used interchangeably on this page.

In Japanese the first letter of a following word is "voiced" meaning the s changes to z in sushi.

The word sushi by itself starts with letter s. But if followed by a word before it. Nigiri Zushi is proper.

But, for the sake of westerners familiar with sushi (and for search engines) I'll sometimes use "Nigiri Sushi".



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