【Reading】むしすし/ぬくずし

【English Name】Mushi sushi / Nuku sushi

Mushi-zushi is a kind of sushi in which vinegared rice and ingredients are placed in a steamer such as a seiro, steamed, and eaten warm. Also known as "nuku-zushi," it is a dish long loved in the Kansai region, with Kyoto foremost among them.

The way of making it uses vinegared rice prepared in a chirashi-sushi style as the base, on which ingredients such as shredded omelet (kinshi-tamago), shiitake, shrimp, conger eel (anago), and kamaboko are colorfully scattered, then placed in a steaming basket (seiro), steamed, and served warm to the customer. It is a seasonal dish prized in the deepening cold of winter, and in Kyoto some shops are seen offering it from around November to around March.

Although sushi originally developed as a cold dish using vinegared rice, mushi-zushi adopts the distinctive method of deliberately warming it before eating. Among its appeals are that steaming softens the sourness of the vinegar and increases the umami of the ingredients. At long-established sushi restaurants in Kyoto it is handed down as a seasonal feature of winter, counted as one of the forms representative of the Kamigata (Kansai) sushi culture in which box sushi and pressed sushi took root.

In Osaka, the name "nuku-zushi" is in some cases established, and differences in ingredients and presentation styles arise from place to place.