Tucked away in Tokyo, restaurant Yoroshiku Sushi serves up premium sushi to customers. Heading the restaurant is Chef Hidenobu Meguro, a veteran sushi expert and author of an encyclopedic book on sushi preparation (Sushi no Gijutsu Taizen).  Over many years of preparing sushi, Meguro has fine-tuned the art of sushi, delighting customers’ taste buds with hand-prepared sushi and keeping them coming back for more.

A significant challenge faced by sushi restaurants, like Chef Meguro’s, is maintaining rice quality over time.  During cooking, rice absorbs water and gelatinizes, becoming softer and more translucent.  This just-cooked quality changes over time as rice hardens, losing its translucency and some of its fresh flavor.  Chef Meguro’s tried-and-true method for keeping fresh sushi rice quality is TREHA® trehalose.

Meguro commented, “Sushi rice that would normally not be as good keeps its delicious flavor and glossiness longer. That is what surprised me about TREHA®.”

 

Chef Meguro at Yoroshiku Sushi

TREHA® trehalose helps keep rice quality even if it is refrigerated or goes through a freeze-thaw cycle.  Chilled and freeze-thawed rice maintains its texture, appearance, and flavor.  The trehalose difference is easily seen.  Below is sushi prepared with and without TREHA® after one freeze-thaw cycle.  On the left, the rice without TREHA® looks white due to starch retrogradation, or hardening of the rice. On the right, the sushi prepared with TREHA® maintains its translucency and moistness.

 

Sushi-Rice-Quality-With-TREHA

 

Nigirizushi, hand-pressed sushi, is made by adding a vinegar mixture to freshly cooked rice and topping the rice with thinly sliced, fresh fish.  Chef Meguro, as well as many other Japanese chefs, adds TREHA® to both the rice (at 2-5% by dry rice weight) and the vinegar (10%) that is incorporated into the rice after it has been cooked.

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