Chirashi

Chirashi is a rice bowl. More specifically it's Chirashi-Sushi building a rice bowl from sushi style ingredients. It's a simpler proposition compared to assembling and rolling sushi. In traditional Japanese cuisine, Chirashi is more structured than what I'm describing. But the concept has deep versatility.

Simply layer in your preferred ingredients. This one was based on Spam Musubi, fried pieces of spam glazed in a teriyaki sauce. 

Simply layer in your preferred ingredients. While I list some below, those lists aren't the only possibilities. In the picture above, it was based on Spam Musubi, fried pieces of spam glazed in a teriyaki sauce; cucumber, julienne carrot, avocado, nori and furikake. But there is a broad range of things that can and do work well. 

Sushi rice, cooked and seasoned

Vegetable choices

• Wilted spinach
• Cucumber in small chunks
• Carrot sliced or julienne
• Green onion, chopped
• Sauted onion
• Fried garlic slices, use a vegetable peeler, fry briefly until it barely changes color
• Bamboo shoots, sliced or julienne

Protein Choices

• Any sushi grade fish as for regular sushi
• Shrimp
• Asian roast port
• Asian omelet or boiled egg slices
• teriyaki chicken or salmon
• Spam, as above
• Tofu
• Mushrooms
• Tobiko

Garnish

• Shredded Nori (cut it with scissors, much easier than with a knife)
• Furikake

Sauce Ideas

Not every bowl of chirashi needs sauce but you'll want to match your sauce to your ingredients when you do use a sauce. 

• If I used a teriyaki flavored meat, I'd use teriyaki sauce. 
• For eel, eel sauce. 
• For roast pork, a blend of hot Asian mustard and some soy sauce.  
• Thai Sweet Chili Sauce is pretty versatile
• Wasabi Mayonnaise or Wasabi Cream
• Sriracha Mayonnaise
• Wasabi -- while many would mix wasabi and soy that's not my personal preference. I'd drizzle some soy on the dish and pickup a bit of wasabi on my chopstick or fork by the bite. 

Give your assembled bowl a mix and enjoy. I admit, I often break down and use a fork for eating chirashi.