Making Aji (horse mackerel) Sashimi for Weekend Lunch

When I woke up this morning, I found it's raining outside, and my hope for enjoying the mildness of early spring sunlight is gone. So, I quickly ran to the neighboring supermarket for commiting to my at-home pastime favorite: cooking. My challenge this time is to work on a whole raw fish, forming it into the eatable state without any heat or preserving condiment: the technique called sashimi in Japanese.

So, here's my input - one whole aji:

Aji, called horse mackerel or jack mackerel in English, is one of the most popular kinds of consumable fish in Japan. For most parts of the coastal Japan, it is not difficult to find sashimi-quality whole aji at supermarkets in any time of the year. And, it's cheap as roughly about 1 USD / piece. Unlike it's price, this fish has rich and fatty taste, and good in fried, grilled, and in sashimi.

To fillet aji into sahimi pieces isn't so difficult as you imagine once you try for a few times. The processes briefly are: 1) chopping off head and fins, 2) taking organs out and washing blood away, 3) taking bones apart from meat, 4) peeling off skins and 5) slicing the meat small as eatable pieces. For the detailed work instructions, there are number of visual examples you can find on the internet.

And, here's my output:

 



Edgy pieces on left side are sashimi as-is. A dumpling-like batch on the right side is called "namerou"; sashimi finely chopped with miso, mirin (a kind of rice wine for cooking), and ginger. Namerou gets along with the sticky Japanese rice very well. (And now, after making namerou, I have to confess that I used preserving condiment, miso, despite I said I cook this fish without preserving condiment at the beginning of this post)

Also, I utilized perishable parts (such as chopped head and fins) except organs,blood, and tiny bones for making broth. Simmering them in kombu dashi for 10 minutes, and mixing it with a tiny bit of salt and usukuchi soy source makes soup du jour.

At last, I'd like to leave a tip for how to distinguish the fresh fish in the easiest way. Fresh fishes have fresh eyes, eyes look as they live. Ones not fresh has reddish eyes, like blood flowing into their white of eyes.

Edges from the Classic

at Osaka Castle

Zen Gardens in Tofukuji

from the last summer visit at Tofukuji in Kyoto, when the gardens become the greenest of the year.

Stairway to Heaven

found in Kitakamakura

Red Spider Lily in Buddhist Temple

Before the last post that I made 3 days ago, I’ve left this blog silent for almost 9 months. So, I try to post photos from the places that impressed me during the time.

Higanbana, called Red spider lily in English, is one of my favorite flowers between late-summer and early-autumn. In the Tokyo area, there are numbers of spots that you can enjoy clumps them. Among all, I chose to go to the Buddhist temple called Josen-ji in last September. Josen-ji is located in Yamato-City in Kanagawa-pref., about 40km away from the heart of Tokyo. At their garden, there are religious statues all around in the densely planted woods. Colors of the red spider lilies beautifully stands out in this scenery.

Seems butterflies like to drink the essence of the flowers, but humans can not imitate this act. Lycoris is poisonous for humans once being eaten.

Josen-ji is not all about red spider lily, they have other eye-catching automn plants such as Maple and  Susuki. 

Early Blooming Cherry Blossoms

In terms of beauty, cherry blossom is known as the Japanese botanical specialite of April. However, there is one that blooms ahead of time in chilly winter weather. Kawazu-zakura is a kind of cherry blossom tree that open its buds sometime between late January and early March. The flower colors somewhat more pinkish (and less whitish) than Somei-yoshino, a kind of cherry blossom that is most popularly known. I took the above photo of kawazu-zakura in my neoighborhood park in Tokyo a few days ago, but I was a little late to see the full-bloom, since leaves already start to grow, to have it's greeness bothering the pure pinkness. Unlikely to somei-yoshino, there are not many sites where we can see the mass-compositions of  Kawazu-zakura. One of the spots popularly known is the town of Kawazu in Shizuoka Pref where the breed of Kawazu-zakura is artificially invented. In the town of Kawazu, the trees are planted for 3km long along the river in the laidback landscape.