Rice Salad Japanese Style

Sushi toppings are usually raw fish or shellfish, but there are one or two types that use cooked ingredients – for example, this ‘scattered sushi’. I regard this as a very good rice salad, made to resemble quite closely the dish that in Japanese is called bara-zushi.

There are two ingredients of the traditional dish that I do not use here because they are very expensive and, outside Japan, difficult to get. They are kelp or konbu, and gourd ribbon. Dashi, or Bonito Stock, is