A better frozen sushi product
This past Monday, I attended the 2007 International Boston Seafood Show and got to sample quite a few products. I also had to pace myself because there were so many tempting foods.
One product that I sampled toward the end of the day was the frozen sushi by Polar Seas (a PDF of their products), a collaborative product of Brooklyn, NY, based True World foods and Kyokuyo Co. in Japan.
I tried it with some trepidation because I have had some fantastically bad chilled (frozen?) sushi at grocery stores and I am still scarred. I have never bought sushi frozen in a box for that reason.
But I had to give it a try, mostly because I felt like I would be able to tell whether it was at least edible. Most of the other samples I had that day were fried, lots of masking.
Good sushi is based on fresh fish but perhaps more importantly, in terms of where it can go horribly wrong, good sushi MUST have GOOD RICE, period.
Frozen or chilled sushi rice can be vile and nauseating: mushy, watery, and revolting on the tongue. Can you tell I feel pretty strongly about the sushi rice? Just a bit.
We taste tested three different types of Polar Seas frozen sushi (images below from product PDF):
Spicy tuna roll:
Tuna Nigiri:
Shrimp Nigiri:
The shrimp didn’t taste like eggs like a lot of frozen shrimp does, thank goodness. It tasted like a natural non-preserved shrimp.
The samples were flying off the trays (the crowd was a couple people deep around the display) so when we asked for Tuna Nigiri, they said there was none thawed but some that were frozen. They gave us a frozen piece and we walked away with it on a plate. It thawed rapidly and before we expected it, we were enjoying a delicious tuna nigiri. Additionally, the tuna tasted fresher than what we have had in sushi restaurants.
Makes you wonder about the possibility of using this frozen product in an ice-packed lunch box. Put the pieces in frozen, put in your ice packs, and then allow them to thaw right before eating. I would have to test that concept out a bit before recommending it.
The spicy tuna roll was flavorful and quite satisfying. We also tried several unagi nigiri (BBQed eel) but do not have photos to share. We could not get enough of it, so delish.
But the rice..
Oh, the rice was spot on. It wasn’t gummy, it was tasty, it was good sushi rice, and it was a pleasant surprise.
