How to make safe sushi

Question

I'd always assumed that if you start with safe fish (appropriately stored/frozen), stay with "normal" fish (i.e. don't try to prepare poisonous puffer fish at home), and follow normal food hygiene practices, it was "safe".

And indeed, for years I've been going to the local Japanese market fish counter, and asking for "fish for sushi". The gentleman behind the counter then recommends some fish, optionally slices it for me, wraps it up and I take it home and make various types of sushi.

Is this correct, or am I missing something? Is there some special technique that I need to follow at home to make safe-sushi?

To be clear, I'm not asking about the safety of the fish itself, I trust the Japanese market fish counter to sell me sushi-safe fish.

Answer 1

The safety of making sushi at home really boils down to

1. Ensuring that your fish meets the criteria for sushi-suitable fish, and
2. Following standard food safety practices for everything else.

There are regulations meant for businesses which confirm that, you can find them under Guidance for Processing Sushi in Retail Operations. You cannot apply them 1:1 as a consumer (for example, I don't know of a way to ensure that your fish was not "harvested from known or designated areas that are problematic for ciguatera"), but they give you a maximum framework you can try to reach. You can see that there are no gotchas there, just what you'd expect for any food, plus fish advice.

For getting fish that is as safe as possible, please refer to this question: Can store bought salmon be used for sashimi?. For standard food safety practices beyond that, pleases see our writeup on food safety, https://cooking.stackexchange.com/tags/food-safety/info.

There is one deviation which is allowed by the guidance above: if you are willing to measure the pH of your rice-and-vinegar mixture, you are allowed to keep the rice inside the danger zone. However, this is not an extra safety restriction, but rather a kind of special dispensation - if you refrigerate the rice promptly as per standard food safety rules, it becomes irrelevant. For home cooking, there is no need to keep a tub of rice on the counter all the time.