Sushi glossary: the Japanese terms you need to know

Also known as Japanese amberjack, hamachi is a type of fish which isn’t massively well-known outside of Japanese cuisine but its melt-in-the-mouth texture makes it a winning choice for sashimi, nigiri and more.

Known for its delicate taste and slight sweetness, hotate can be eaten raw or cooked and is best kept simple, allowing the flavour to shine. That’s why it’s most often thinly sliced and served atop nigiri.

While most parts of a squid can be used in sushi, it’s the body which is usually served raw on nigiri. Ika has more bite to it than some other types of seafood used in sushi, which provides a great contrast to the sticky rice.

Best known as the ingredient which is fermented and dried to make bonito flakes, or katsuobushi – an umami-rich seasoning used extensively in Japanese cookery – katsuo (also called bonito) is also commonly used in both sushi and tataki.

These dried sheets of edible seaweed, along with sushi rice, are one of the key ingredients in sushi rolls. Usually found on the outside of maki, where it is used to hold the rice together, nori is also occasionally found on the inside of a sushi roll (uramaki) and is also used when making onigiri.

Undeniably one of the most versatile types of fish used in sushi, sake (confusingly the same word for liquor or alcohol in Japan) is used in everything from nigiri to the filling of maki, and is also commonly served by itself as sashimi. Ironically salmon never used to be eaten raw in Japan because of the parasites it was thought to harbour, until the Norwegians introduced the concept to the country in the 1980s. Because of the similarity in the word for liquor, most sushi restaurants will make it clear that sushi contains salmon, and it tends to be pronounced ‘shak-e’ when referring to the fish.

Providing a whack of umami and seasoning to a whole host of different Japanese dishes, shoyu plays just as important a role in sushi. Usually served in a shallow dish, the idea is to briefly dip your sushi into the soy sauce but for a short enough time that it doesn’t absorb too much of the shoyu and overpower the flavour of the fish.

Tako differs from many of the other types of seafood used in sushi, as it’s almost always boiled before being served to bring out more of its flavour. With the potential to have a slightly chewy texture, it’s essential that tako is sliced incredibly thinly.

These tiny orange eggs have a slight smokiness to them and are used both as a topping and a filling in some varieties of sushi. The most common of these are California rolls, which are often sprinkled with tobiko, providing an added crunch. You can also find tobiko flavoured with the likes of wasabi, yuzu and squid ink, which also change its colour.

One of the more popular vegetarian sushi toppings, tamago is a sweet Japanese omelette made by folding eggs over and over again to create a fluffy, layered texture. Predominantly found either in maki or on top of nigiri, tamago is also occasionally used as an alternative to nori for wrapping sushi.

Made from the rhizome – a knobbly root that grows underground – of the wasabia japonica plant, wasabi is sometimes known as Japanese horseradish and has the same white heat as mustard. It’s most commonly served as a bright green paste, made by finely grating the rhizome, although you will often only find ‘true’ wasabi at high-end restaurants in the UK (the more common and cheaper pastes are bulked out with horseradish). Its intense spiciness, which provides a nasal kind of heat, is used to balance the umami of soy sauce and highlight the flavour of raw fish without overpowering it.

An essential part of making most forms of sushi roll, a makisu is a bamboo mat used for rolling the rice, nori and fillings into a perfect cylinder. Rolling using a makisu is the last stage of sushi-making before chopping it up, ready for service. Sometimes chefs will line a makisu with cling film to stop the rice from sticking to it. This is most common with uramaki, where the rice is on the outside of the roll.

The Japanese word for chopsticks, hashi are an essential part of eating most types of sushi. Made with everything from bamboo to porcelain, a well-made set of hashi only makes eating sushi an easier and nicer experience altogether.