Wasabi is a green paste that tastes a lot like horseradish. It is put on sushi to make it spicy. Good wasabi makes my nose run. That’s why I love sushi, for the wasabi. I spread wasabi on the sushi when I make it. Then I mix wasabi and soy sauce in a small bowl and dip the sushi into the bowl as I eat it so the rice soaks up the wasabi soy sauce mixture.
Wasabi comes in tubes that look like toothpaste tubes. You can squeeze the wasabi directly on to your food from the tub. I would avoid this style because it goes bad over time.
The wasabi I use comes powdered and in a can. You remove a spoonful or two from the can and mix it with water to form a paste and it is ready to eat. As you mix it the wasabi is very pungent and you nose will burn and it will almost burn your eyes like onions do. But it will also make your mouth water knowing you will soon be eating some tasty wasabi which will make your nose run.
You should tightly close the can after removing the powdered wasabi because if you don’t the wasabi will absorb water from the air and go bad.
The last time I bought it I paid about $5 at a Japanese grocery for a can of the stuff pictured on this page. It contains 25 grams or about three fourths of an ounce of dry wasabi.
When I went to Japan my sisters friends bought me a tasty meal of sushi. They told the cook in Japanese to lace my sushi with wasabi, probably as a trick to see how I would react to the spicy wasabi.
Of course when I bit into the sushi the wasabi set my mouth on fire and made my nose run, which is something I like, because I love hot spicy food.
My sisters friend kept asking me “Do you like the sushi”? And I kept answering “It’s good sh*t”! While his English is perfect he didn’t understand that “good sh*t” means I liked the food very much. Finally my sister told him I liked it, with out explaining exactly what “good sh*t” means.