Umazurahagi - foie gras from sea

 

 

Talking about this fish in the photo, umazurahagi, I need to start with the brief explanation of kawahagi. Kawahagi, called thread-sail filefish in English, is one of the top listed fishes for the Japanese table-top pleasure. If fugu is known as the king of the fish for the gastronomic consumption, Kawahagi is the queen.

Looking from the side, kawahagihas a diamond shape with its funny face that seems trying to kiss someone. Umazurahagi , called black scraper in English, is very similar fish from kawahagi, as it's hard to distinguish which is which from their appearances, both as live fish and in sashimi format. Umazurahagi is known that it somewhat comes after kawahagi in it's taste, however still, umazurahagi brings good enough of the gastronomic pleasure. And more it's economy choice than kawahagi.

What in the above photo is from sashimi pack of umazurahagi that I found at the supermarket a few days ago, rearranged on my tamba-ware pottery square plate. The thin-sliced meat looks almost transparent. Once having it in your mouth, touch of the meat in your mouth and the way it's rich flavor comes out as biting are so delicate.

And, what's more important about this fish than it's meat, is liver (the pink round staff on the left side in the photo). The reason we like this liver is very similar to how French people like foie gras. Only the difference is that we eat this liver raw when it's fresh. High containment of fat brings rich, creamy, and delicate touch while flavor is clean without unpleasant smell. This is something like what I imagine if foie gras can be eaten raw. And I make sure to note that this liver does not contain deadly poison as fugu does. One you see in the above photo is the whole liver, but it can be fine chopped and eaten with a slice of meat.

In any form, regardless of meat of liver, we usually eat this kind of fish with the light dip of Ponzu, the sauce made of soy sauce, mirin, kombu, and juice of the Japanese citrus fruit usually with yuzu, sudachi, or kabosu - full of umami combined with the tart refreshness of the citrus fruits.

High season for kawahagi is actually in winter when the liver grow the most, besides in summer, known as when the meat comes the most tasteful. However, regardless of the season, whenever I find this fish in sashimi at supermarkets, I can't hold myself from grabbing one.

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.

Memory from last winter pt.2 - Yurine

Yurine is root of lily. Yes, lily as the flower, and Japanese eat it's root. Yurine is most popularly known among Japanese as one of the assorted ingredients contained in chawanmushi which is steamed egg custard. What on the above picture is simply boiled with salted water, and crushed pickled plum(umeboshi) is set aside as condiment.

 
Texture of cooked yurine resembles to potato. More precisely, you feel it somewhat smoother than potato in your mouth once you bite. Cooked yurine creates neither any scent nor rich flavor, but slight sweetness. For me personally, smooth texture is the best part to enjoy this root.

For the black bowl that served yurine, sorry again, I do not have info about where this was made. Based on the black glaze, you can partly see the orange glaze. We call it persimmon glaze that is called ‘kakiyu’ in Japanese (I will explain the variety of glazes used for Japanese pottery in my later posts). This combination of glaze can popularly be seen among Mashiko-ware (however I can’t be sure that this particular one is from Mashiko, such style can also be seen among Tanba-ware and etc...). In the very bottom of the bowl around the lower rim, you see unglazed part that "bare roasted clay" is shown. It's in reddish brown color that gives difficulty to distinish from kakiyu with my photos (sorry for the poor quality photos.... I have to learn photography...). Orange parts seen inside of the lower rim and around the top rim are the persimmon glaze.

 

My personal highlight of this bowl is how the persimmon glaze is mingling into the black and dripping downward from the top rim.Two photos below are the detailed look of the dripping, with and without the flash. The reason I posted one with the flash is that the reflection of the light shows the drips better. The reflection is made by iron containment in both of the black and persimmon glazes. It’s colored somewhat like the oil in the water. Each drip going downward is thin as hair. Chinese people  actually call such dripping “rabbit’s hair”, and I love the way it is called.

Memory from last winter - Grilled Kuwai

 

Kuwai (Threeleaf Arrowhead) is the plant that can easily be found in large part of Asia, Europe, and Americas. However, it’s had less chances of being utilized for the gastronomy. As a gastronomic interpretation of this plant, it’s root is the part to be enjoyed. The texture of kuwai root is somewhere between chestnut and potato once heated, while the taste is somewhat sharper and bitterer. Popular way of cooking it in Japan is peeling the skin off then simmer it in a pot. It is one of the popular assorted treats for New Year’s Day meal (Osechi). Ones on the above photo, I grilled it with leaving the skin on. Skin can also be eaten in this way. Simply sprinkle a pinch of salt on to proceed “bon appetite”.

Not many Japanese eat kuwai except pot-simmerd ones as New Year’s day meal. I discovered the grilling method by a gourmet essay written by a Japanese novelist Tsutomu Mizukami, with his experience as a servant boy at a Buddhist temple in his chilhood. During the time, he prepared meals for the priests in the temple.

 

 

Two potteries are used to serve the kuwai and salt. One that kuwai’s are on, sorry, I don’t have much info about this. I have to go back to the store I bought and ask about it… I simply love how the black glaze is sharply splashed on dark brown. This also creates profound gradation of the color transforming from brown to black.

 

This yellow one, that salt was on, is Fujina-ware that is located in northwestern Japan called Shimane pref. The yellow glaze is a good contrast with the darker presentation of kuwai dish. Fujina, is also well-known by Japanese pottery lovers in making British-influenced slipware.

Beefy Tuesday

Sake, beef, and pottery - all Japanese made

Taste of Spring in Kizeto Warisansho Bowl

Firefly squid with Nanohana (Chinese colza) in Kizeto Warisansho.

Originally, Kizeto is a type of pottery that was presumablly produced around mid-late 1500's (between late Muromachi and early Momoyama era) in Seto region. After centuries of disappearance, modern potters started to make Renaissance of it, by refering fragments of the original pottaries found at some relic sites in  Seto. "Ki" means yellow in Japanese. "Zeto" is the transformed use of the word "Seto".

Warisansho is a type of bowl, used to serve small dish. "Wari" means broken or cracked, and  "Sansho" is  Japense Pepper in English. The bowl looks like a fruit of the pepper being cracked. For this perticular bowl, diameter from top is 12cm and height is 8cm approxiately.


 

    

Up-close texture