Sugar – Sushi rice vinegar proportions

ricesaltsugarsushivinegar

So i'm trying to make sushi rice and i know the essential component is the vinegar/sugar/salt mixture (with the optional kombu, which i don't have access to, so i omit entirely). I would like to hear your opinions on the ratios of the vinegar to sugar to salt. I have seen several but have not chosen my favourite yet. Also does anyone know for certain if salt is added to make the overall flavour sort of bitter-sweet, or… ?

On a related note: how important is the fanning of the rice? I mean, come on, to me sitting besides the rice and fanning with a giant palm leaf to fend off the excess moisture from your rice-pharaoh just seems utteryl ridiculous. In cooking there always have been supposedly imporatnt fancy techniques that are considered essential by every blogger, ever, yet in reality have little to no impact on the quality of the dish.

Best Answer

I did an online search for the first 10 sushi rice recipes with distinct ingredient proportions and came up with the following ratio (by weight):

1:0.08:0.16:0.02 (Raw Rice:Sugar:Vinegar:Salt)

With cooked rice,

1:0.03:0.06:0.01 (Cooked Rice:Sugar:Vinegar:Salt)

Or, if you prefer:

For 1300g / ~6 cups Sushi Rice

400g or 2 cups of raw sushi rice (about 1200g or 6 cups of cooked rice)
32g or 3 tbsp white granulated sugar
63g or 4 tbsp vinegar
7g or 1tsp salt

I've not tried these proportions yet but I usually find that a simple average of 10 to 20 distinct recipe proportions gives me a good starting point for experimentation. At the very least averaging helps avoid nasty surprises like the saltylicious recipe of Alton Brown I linked to in my comment above.

Another answer here suggests a Salt:Sugar:Vinegar ratio of 1:2:2, whereas my figures suggest something closer to 1:5:9 if we are talking weight ratios (the other answer doesn't specify).

You asked whether salt would help give the rice a bitter sweet taste. In my experience sushi rice has no obvious bitter taste, but it does have a sweet-sour flavor that the vinegar and sugar lends. Salt helps other flavors play nicely with each other and at the same time adds a delicate flavor bass note of its own.

In my opinion you are unlikely to find a favorite recipe by adjusting the proportions alone. There are preparation techniques to play with, varieties of rice and types of vinegar. Many sushi rice recipes feature mirin, sake, kombu or dashi in the list of ingredients. Experimenting with any of these things will likely necessitate altering the ingredient proportions from what I give here.

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