Surprisingly, chirashi has worked wonders at my dinner parties – everyone loves choosing various toppings and making their own personalized bowls, and they gush about the experience for weeks.
When you’re making chirashi, think about the vegetables and fishes that you enjoy eating the most, and try to incorporate them into your bowl – you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results, I guarantee it. Don’t be intimidated by the list of ingredients – you can always pick and choose how many components you want, and substitute the fishes!
Cooking time: About 2-3 hours (May vary depending on components chosen)
Serves: 4-5
INGREDIENTS:
250g Basmati rice or Long grain brown rice
1 medium sized Tomato
Large eggs 3-4
Fishes and seafood
200g Sea bream (whole/steaks)
200g Salmon fillets (I got 2 fillets)
100g Fish roe
6 King prawns (shelled, heads removed)
Assorted vegetables
6 Medium-sized closed cup mushrooms
12 Small carrots, julienned
1 Cucumber, seeds removed, sliced
Other ingredients
1 Medium eggplant
4 Cloves garlic (or more if you really love garlic!)
1 Medium Onion
½ tsp Turmeric powder
3 Green chilli
1 ½ tsp Mustard oil
1 ½ tbsp Creamed coconut
1 tsp Dried coconut
4 tbsp Flour
2 ½ tbsp Cumin seeds
2 tbsp Coriander seeds
2 tbsp Fennel seeds
3 tbsp Shredded mozzarella
2 tbsp Shredded parmesan
1 tsp Dark soy sauce
1 tsp Olive oil
For garnish:
Toasted sesame seeds
Mint leaves
Lemon wedges
Salt and pepper to taste
Oil for frying (preferably olive or vegetable oil)
METHOD:
1. We’re going to make the following dishes as components for our chirashi
a. Poached Sea bream
b. Shallow fried Salmon coated in spices
c. Fish roe ‘pakoras’
d. Mustard prawns
e. Poached eggs
f. Tomato rice as base for our chirashi
g. Assorted tempura vegetables and mushroom
2. Poached Sea Bream and Fried Salmon:
a. Mince together onion and garlic cloves (yields about 3 tbsp mince).
b. Spoon 2 tbsp of that mince into a freezer bag.
c. Add soy sauce, 2 tbsp water, salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar. Your marinade is ready!
d. Add your sea bream into the freezer bag, carefully close the bag and gently massage the marinade into the fish. Set aside for 30 mins.
e. In the meanwhile, gently toast 2 tbsp each of cumin, coriander and fennel seeds to bring out their natural oils. Grind to a powder.
f. Coat your salmon fillets with 2 tbsp of the spice mixture.
g. Shallow fry in a non-stick pan till cooked through, frying the skin side first.
h. Once cooked through, set aside and gently remove the skin.
i. Return the skin to the pan and fry till crispy. Set aside, we’ll use this at the very end.
j. Add the marinated sea bream to the pan.
k. Deglaze the pan with plenty of warm water – enough to cover the sea bream.
Tip: Don’t remove the marinade sticking to the fish – this will form a part of your poaching liquid.
l. Poach till cooked. I made a whole sea bream, and poached each side for 12 minutes. For steaks, 7 mins per side should suffice.
m. Remove fish from pan and set aside.
n. Reduce the poaching liquid to a sauce consistency and sieve into a separate bowl, ready to be served alongside poached sea bream.
o. Don’t throw away the solids stuck to your sieve – we’ll use that when we’re making fish roe pakoras!
3. Fish Roe Pakoras (yields 10-12 pakoras)
a. Add 2 ½ tbsp of your toasted spice mix, 1 tbsp onion-garlic mince, flour, fish roe, 2 chopped green chillies, ½ tsp cumin, salt and pepper and whatever’s stuck to your sieve into a bowl/food processor.
b. Mix together thoroughly. The final mixture should look like a thick cake mix.
c. Heat oil till medium hot.
d. Spoon ½ tbsp. of the mixture at a time into the hot oil and deep fry. These will cook fairly quickly, so keep an eye out – you want them golden brown on the outside.
e. Place pakoras on kitchen towels to draw out excess oil.
4. Mustard Prawns
a. In an aluminium foil pouch/ airtight steel container combine prawns, turmeric, creamed coconut, dried coconut, 1 chopped green chilli and salt. Drizzle some mustard oil.
b. Seal the pouch/container and immerse in boiling water for about 10-15 minutes till the prawns are cooked through.
c. Remove the pouch from water and let it rest for 10 mins before opening.
5. All about that base
a. Wash the rice till water runs clear.
b. Add the rice and the tomato (yes, you heard that right) in a pot, cover with water and boil till rice is cooked.
Tip: For extra favourful rice, toss in a stock cube while it’s cooking.
c. Carefully remove the tomato and peel off the skin.
d. Drain the rice.
e. Smash the tomato and mix with rice. Season well.
6. Last step: poach the eggs and fry/prep the veggies
a. Give yourself a pat on the back and have a glass of wine.
b. Poach the eggs in lightly salted water (I use silicone cups, less messy). Set aside.
c. Prepare a light batter. Alternatively, if you love minimizing effort like me, you can buy readymade tempura batter mix at any supermarket, just add water as per instructions on the packet.
d. Cut eggplant into thin slices.
e. Remove the stems from mushrooms so you’re left with just a cup.
f. Combine 2 types of cheese and stuff the mushroom cups.
Tip: Poke holes into the mushrooms with a fork so they don’t burst while frying. (I’m not joking, found out the hard way)
g. Heat oil.
h. Dip eggplant slices and filled mushroom cups into the batter and fry till golden.
i. Season the cucumber slices with salt, pepper and chaat masala(optional).
j. Toss the carrot strips in some lime juice, salt and toasted sesame seeds.
k. While you’re at it, cut long slices of the fried salmon skin and season heavily.
7. Time to dig in! Serve the components buffet style with garnishes and some hot,sweet and sour sauce on the side.
8. Building a bowl: Start with a scoop of rice. Top with an assortment of fishes, vegetables and maybe even a poached egg. Experiment with combinations with each spoonful.
In this case, everyone especially enjoyed the combination of salmon, fried fish skin, tempura eggplant and fish roe pakora with rice – all in one bite of course!
9. My table looked something like this (with my bowl in the middle):
Recipe by: Shrukriti Gupta