The little-known ingredient that makes Nobu’s sushi taste so good

Nobu Matsuhisa is the owner of Nobu Restaurants and Hotels and author of "Nobu: A Memoir". Here, he shares the secret that makes his sushi special. 

Nobu Matsuhisa: Sushi rice is — make the steamed rice, put the rice vinegars, and the salt, and ... used to be I use the sugar, but we don’t use the sugars anymore.

I’m Nobu Matsuhisa, owner of Nobu Restaurants Group and Hotels.

Most sushi rice uses sugar, rice vinegar, and salt, and the sweet sake. But maybe since last year, I started using, called monk fruits. Because this is a no sugar, no calorie, but they’re still sweet. Because it’s more healthy. You know, people, especially the New York people are looking for the more healthy food.

Monk fruit is native to Southeast Asia

Companies like Splenda have started making monk fruit sweeteners

This is very new. It’s very new. And a lot of people don’t know the monk fruits yet. But I started to introduce these monk fruits all over the world.

How to make the sushi rice is — we wash like five or six times, rinse. Then after finish, after five or six times and strainers, they cut all the water. Maybe keep that half an hour.

Then put it in the rice cookers. So, means five cups rice, so five cups water. The same amount. And this is the perfect way to make the sushi rice.

Maybe for the sushi rice, using monk fruits, maybe I am first, so far.