Up and coming female sushi chef, Asuka Kobayashi, of Matsuri St. James’s, won the first ever Eat-Japan SUSHI AWARDS 2011: UK Sushi Roll Championship, sponsored by Kikkoman and Tsuno Foods. Her creation, ‘Precious Memories’, received an overwhelming number of votes from the 1,800 members of the public, who decided on their favourite after tasting the five nominated chefs’ sushi entries. The idea of the winning sushi came from Asuka’s own precious memories. Having been brought up by a mother who ran a pizza restaurant, Asuka became familiar with the ingredients and taste of Italy. The use of red wine was influenced by her home prefecture, Nagano, famous for grapes and great red wines. Combining these elements, she spent a good week experimenting with an array of ingredients in order to find the perfect combination, and when it came to deciding on the final idea, she received approval from all the sushi masters at the Matsuri, St. James’s. The sushi roll was made up using salmon marinated in KIKKOMAN Soy Sauce and red wine, two coloured halves of sushi rice (Sushi vinegared rice and red wine vinegared rice), mascarpone, sun-dried tomato puree, capers, dill, basil, rocket, chives and Nori seaweed. With an accompaniment of KIKKOMAN Soy Sauce and red wine foam, as well as a sushi ginger and sesame crispy cracker, ‘Precious Memories’ was created. Asuka Kobayashi has a decade of experience as a chef at Matsuri St. James’s. She commented ‘I was really surprised! I didn’t thing I would win. All the other chefs are very experienced head chefs so I felt pressure. My mum must be so proud of me, I must call her!’ The five nominated chefs worked alongside each other at the UK Sushi Roll Championship sushi counter, where each restaurant served 1,800 sushi rolls to ticket holders over the course of the three day Hyper Japan event, totaling a staggering 9,000 pieces. After tasting all the entries, ticket holders voted for their favourite. The restaurant and chef who got the most votes received the honour of being crowned UK Sushi of the Year. |