Salmon Tartare

Gazing begrudgingly at the day’s selection of sashimi grade fish at my local supermarket, I realized that my options are, and have always been, quite limited. Tuna, salmon, squid, or kampachi.

Despite having moved 50 km away from the ocean, I refuse to accept the fact that I am stuck with a dimished selection of fish to choose from whenever I get that urge for sushi or sashimi – and unfortunately, that craving is five days out of the week.

What to do? Resort to my usual menu of salmon and avocado wraps (norimaki) accompanied by a haphazardly concocted egg pancake (tamagoyaki)? Attempt to better my hand-form sushi (nigirizushi) made with kampachi and tuna? No!

So, I am splintering away from the Japanese world and applying what I’ve learned about working with raw fish to a western delicacy inspired by a recent trip to Amsterdam. The day’s special is Salmon Tartare!

Now, you might have heard of the beef variant known as steak tartare, which is made with raw beef, mustard, herbs and spices served with toast and tartare sauce. Salmon tartare is, unsurprisingly, the fishy version of perhaps one of the greatest dishes I’ve ever had the pleasure of consuming.

Salmon tartare as featured on Sushi Break is not a new invention. But I will share the result of my experimentation below.

Homemade salmon tartare served with special soy sauce

Salmon tartare – with special soy sauce and sliced tomatos

Salmon Tartare served with toast and sliced tomatos

Recipe is not exact*, but if you want to try yourself, here is the shopping list:

1 lb fresh sashimi grade salmon (I used Norwegian salmon, sans skin and bones)
1/2 seeded finely sliced/diced cucumber
1/2 tbs minced shallots
1/2 small white onion
1/2 to 3/4 tbs truffle infused olive oil (normal EVOO is fine too), don’t add more than 1/2 tbs if your salmon is really fatty or you’ll have salmon fat contending with oil which I find a little distracting and not so tasty
1/2 tsp salt (Okinawan salt was used, but if you’re going to use table salt, a small pinch only)
1 tsp fresh parsley finely chopped (dried parsley also ok)
1/2 tbs Jane’s Crazy Pepper (finely ground with mortar and pestle)
1 tbs of fresh squeezed orange juice (I didn’t have lemon/lemon juice)
1/2 tsp (and I mean no more than 1/2 tsp) of sesame seed oil (aka 胡麻油) – this stuff is quite aromic and strong tasting, so don’t let it steal the show

*The shopping list was based on a salmon tartare recipe on Bon Appetit

Instructions: Slice the salmon finely, but not so small that you get mush. You’re trying to make food for humans, not cat food. Keep the salmon aside in a chilled bowl. To the salmon, add the other ingredients in no particular order – but I find that mixing it all in separate bowl ahead of time is a nice idea, so you can just dump it in with the freshly sliced salmon, and be on your way to eating. Rapidly but gently blend together the ingredients with a rubber spatula or other forgiving tool – in other words, don’t use a wooden spoon that grips (and rips) the salmon meat apart with each stir.

For the presentation, what I did was scoop half the mixture into two shallow coffee mugs, flipped them upside down onto the serving saucers, and stored in the fridge for 30 minutes (or however long it takes you to make your other dinner items). Ideally, when you remove your mugs, your salmon tartare should look like little domes.

Temarizushi on Hina Matsuri

Temarizushi, or, “ball sushi,” is a smaller variant of the hand-formed nigirizushi. Temari refers to those colorfully decorated “handballs” made of silk and fabric.

I whipped these up for Japan’s Hina Matsuri “festival for girls” and although chirashizushi is more commonly served on this day, homemade temarizushi were still a good choice! The ingredients used were: engawa, shrimp, avocado, egg, and shiso.

Homemade temarizushi made with engawa, shrimp egg, avocado, and salmon. Garnished with green shiso leaves (also yummy to wrap the sushi up when eating).

Very simple to make. All you need is some sushi rice, choice of toppings, and a square piece of plastic wrap. There isn’t really any limit to what you can make so long as it’s delicious and doesn’t take up too much time!

Start off by putting your topping in the center of the plastic wrap followed by the rice. Then wrap your ingredients with the plastic wrap – easiest done by twisting the wrap tight (not too tight!) around the ingredients whilst maintaining a round shape. Give it a couple of gentle but decided pinches as if you were doing a normal nigirizushi with your thumb and forefinger only. Remove the plastic wrap, place the finished temarizushi on a platter, and continue with the next one.

If you have any decorative ingredients like ikura (salmon eggs) or sliced spring onions, save those for garnishing finished temarizushi pieces. I gave my egg-topped temarizushi avocado bunny ears (see below).

Egg and Avocado Temarizushi

On a Roll with Makizushi: Homemade Salmon Avocado Rolls Part 2

The key to a good sushi roll is balancing a lot of little things (ingredients, texture, shape, and more) all at once to form a great culinary unit that is more than the sum of its parts. Sheez, easier said than done!

Practice, practice, practice and practice more, and you’ll get to a level where you can crank out a fine plate of what you see below.

Sushi Rolls made from Avocado and Salmon plus carrots and sprouts

While I won’t go into every single step, the best things to remember are:

K.I.S.S. – Keep It Simple Sushi. Don’t go all fancy with your first few attempts. You won’t impress anyone and you’ll only end up frustrating yourself. Limit your ingredients to 1 or 2 (not including rice and seaweed).

Seaweed – Use the expensive stuff. Do not use the cheap stuff. Do not use Korean salted “snack seaweed”. Do use anything labeled “Asakusa Nori” or anything pretending to be even if it might not be the real thing.

Don’t Roll – It may sound counter-intuitive given the dish’s name and all, but, don’t roll your sushi like the ladies rolling dough at Cinnabon. There is a method to it for which careful observation at your local sushi restaurant or 10 minutes on YouTube will prove very educational.

There are tons of sushi roll recipes out there already, and many yet to be invented! Give it a go and always, always test your work yourself before giving others to eat – if you like, chances are someone else will, too.

Author’s Note: I didn’t really use Shiso in my rolls this time around, but their inclusion is a great idea. Why? You may have noticed the main ingredients used are avocado and salmon, two foods with bland but dominant “fatty” tastes and pasty textures. To counterbalance their dominance, shiso adds a bit of herbal freshness in a way that keeps the sushi interesting without being as acute as sliced ginger (another possible substitute if you don’t have access to shiso), as shy as (adding more) sprounts, or as unpredictable as wasabi. A thought has come to mind that if you don’t have any shiso, ginger, or wasabi, a little chopped fresh parsley may give a slightly more aggressive but similar impact that this sushi needs. If you have any other great suggestions, please send an email to info@metropolitansushi.com!

On a Roll with Makizushi: Homemade Salmon Avocado Rolls Part 1

Makizushi a.k.a. sushi rolls is something I have come to appreciate more and more. The reason being, that, simply eating it is no longer satisfying – making sushi rolls is fun, challenging, and gratifying when you get it right.

My favorite homemade sushi rolls to make and eat are filled with avocado, salmon, carrots, beansprouts, and shiso (red or green). I always make sure that the avocado is nice and soft, carrots crisp, salmon fatty, and beansprouts and shiso fresh from the garden.

Avocado, Carrots, Sprouts, and Salmon

When first learning to make your own homemade sushi rolls, don’t be afraid to cut your ingredients to a size/shape that’s easy to work with – but be reasonable. For example, avocado is quite slippery so you may need to slice it into smaller pieces but not so small that you get guacamole (a sushi roll recipe that does use guacamole I will save for a future post)! At least, my recipe does not call for mushiness but some sushi rolls like negitoro-maki “spring onions and minced toro maguro rolls” (yum-yum) are quite mushy.

Finished product will be in the next post.

Sushi for lunch. Everyday?!

There is nothing like being able to walk 2 minutes from the office to a sushi shop for lunch. I have been blessed with a workplace that allows me to spend my 12 to 1 fulfilling my sushi craving, any day.

But would I go everyday?

I remember writing a post about the dangers of eating too much sushi, but I never thought about it too seriously until I faced the pleasant reality of stuffing myself with sushi daily.
Despite the possibility of getting food poisoning, parasites, mercury poisoning, or suffering from a major foodgasm before the next shift starts, I don’t really see a problem with the concept of everyday sushi – I’m sure there are some out there who actually do this.

Of course, my wallet may have objections of being emptied a bit sooner than if I practiced a bit more delayed gratification.

So, I like the idea that I could have sushi everyday but I probably won’t pursue it in reality.

My latest take-away sushi box is below. The combo is: chutoro, kappa-maki (cuccumber rolls), aji (horse mackerel, and saba (pickled mackerel).

Takeout Sushi!

Better than fried shrimp

Sometimes raw shrimp is tastier than fried.

I picked up a pack of fresh akaebi from the store and didn’t even bother with looking up a recipe.
Shelled em and ate em.
And I though amaebi were sweet!
What’s more, is I saved the shells and heads, threw them in a pot with some miso and had shrimp soup!
Great snack that took all but 10 minutes.
Email me if you want the recipe!

November 1 is Sushi Day: Born from the Japanese connection to the Fall season, marketing, and a love story

Since the 1960s, November 1 marks Sushi Day in Japan.
The All Japan Sushi Guild in 1961 came up with a way to help the Japanese celebrate and give thanks to the coming of the Fall season. This time of year, fruition, harvests, and rice are highly valued in Japanese culture. Also, Fall is a time that traditionally the Japanese associate with appetite and the in Japanese Shokuyoku no Aki (食欲の秋) literally means “Fall appetite”.

Smart marketing
Having established a cultural connection to eating and to the Fall season, the All Japan Sushi Guild intended for sushi to be celebrated and enjoyed by people of all ages and gender, and promoted National Sushi Day to appeal to everyone. In a way, it was a successful marketing ploy to get more people to eat sushi especially since in the 1960s onward, with Japan’s economy rapidly recovering after its defeat in WWII, more and more people, not just rich elites, but of all parts of Japanese society were able to enjoy sushi.

Why November 1?
There is sort of a love story behind the Sushi Day date of November 1 which has its origin in theatrics. A sushi restaurant appears in a kabuki play in which Taira Koremori, a samurai warrior defeated in battle, visits and falls in love with the daughter of the sushi chef (if interested, he was serving Ayu or sweetfish sushi). The warrior then gives up his status as a samurai and is adopted into the sushi chef’s family and changes his name to Yasuke on November 1. The sushi restaurant is known today as Tsurubesushi Yasuke, or Yasukezushi and is located in Nara Prefecture, Japan. If you’re in the area, go and grab a bite of sushi history!

Big Prawns from Indonesia – Shrimp Sushi for the those not getting the raw deal

I have found that most people who come from cultures where eating raw fish is not a norm tend to break into sushi for the first time through cooked sushi, like the commonplace boiled shrimp sushi (ebi).

Shrimp sushi is easy for sushi first-timers.

Boiled shrimp is familiar to most people in the West, which I can understand would make it easier to accept when eaten as sushi.

Other cooked sushi toppings like egg omelets, barbecued eel, and blanched sea bream, are other common cooked items on sushi restaurant menus.

But if you absolutely can’t handle raw fish, you don’t have to limit yourself to these slim choices. There are so many other kinds of sushi and many additional ways to enjoy them in a less-raw state (after overcoming the impressions you already have).

Take for instance sardine sushi (iwashi): Westerners are probably used to seeing sardines in cans or jars with oil, and not exactly the most appetizing things. That impression is stuck in their minds when told of sardine sushi. Raw sardines, even fresh ones, are somewhat fragrant and can kill your appetite rather quickly. But why settle for the raw deal when you can ask the sushi chef to make it a little less raw?

Aburi (炙り) is the method of torching something with, of course, a blowtorch or flame. In sushi, it means to singe the top or outer surface of raw fish, cooking it. The result is a sardine with a browned crackling surface and the juiciness of a flame-broiled steak (it’s still fish, mind you). The part that has been put to the flame often tastes good enough to make you forget about the fact the rest is raw, but at least it might turn your “ewws” into “yumms”.

The shrimp sushi featured above was made from giant Indonesia tiger prawns, caught fresh (not farmed) and packed at 680 yen for 6 prawns ($8.71) or about $1.45 per prawn. These monsters are large enough to satisfy the no-raw-fish sushi fan, but if you’re felling only a little bit adventurous, take my advice and experiment with others toppings!

Fillets of Sole (karei)

I used a lull in between rain storms to venture out and have a look at the Sunday fish stock at a neighborhood grocer. The only thing decent they had was makokarei (below “karei”), or young marbled soles that were shipped fresh from Chiba prefecture.

Prepped sole (karei) with head and guts removed.

About a 10 inches in length and weighing about 380 grams, this flatfish was not exactly a bargain at 752 yen ($9.64). But when these babies are available, I won’t waste the opportunity for a nice meal in the form of sushi, sashimi, or grilled sole.

Karei are a white meat fish and have a light taste that when properly served can have a slightly fluffy texture, especially when grilled, broiled or otherwise cooked.

The sushi and sashimi iterations present an unexpectedly tough and chewier texture compared to the cooked versions. Karei and its opposite-eyed cousin the Hirame (Flounder) are popular choices at restaurants that specialize in fish — but they are also more expensive compared to more common fish like aji (horse mackerel) and sake (salmon).

I sliced my sole at home (I had the fish seller remove the head and guts before repackaging) using the Gomai-oroshi or five-piece fillet method. Like the name suggests, the result is 4 boneless fillets and a bony carcass (not pictured) — the fillets I used for sushi and frying, while I threw the leftovers into a pot for soup.

When filleting a flatfish, make sure you have a thin and flexible fillet knife or other chef’s knife with a slender blade. It also helps to rinse and wipe your blade during the filleting so you can make a clean cut as often as possible — this will help prevent tearing or ripping of flesh and possibly ruining your fillets.

Sole fillets after using gomai-oroshi (5-piece fillet). Carcass (the fifth piece) is already in the soup pot!

Picking a good flatfish (sole or flounder) is not difficult, but what is difficult is finding one that isn’t cultivated (“farmed”). I personally preferred freshly caught flatfish because while I have a general idea of what these bottom-feeders dine on in the wild, I don’t want to think about the stuff the farmers are giving them in the cultivation ponds. Not that it’s easy to taste the difference either, but it is just for peace of mind.

Farmed soles and flounders can be spotted very easily by flipping them to see the white underbelly and checking for dark spots on the skin. I have been told that the feed used in cultivation causes this, but I will save the science behind that for another time. The point is, if you want a fresh flatfish, go for a pure white underbelly specimen — don’t forget to ask the salesman if it’s not indicated. Most supermarkets and fish mongers know that more and more people have become aware of the difference between fresh and farmed fish and may likewise develop a preference for the fresh version. So, they sell their flatfish in packages with the fish’s white underbelly in full visibility. I think this is great because not only does it show honesty on the part of the seller, but it prevents too many people from messing with the fish too many times to check for spots — someone eventually needs to buy that fish and it’s best that it’s not been handled too much!

Hetakuso Bocho Series – Episode 2: Sea Bream Madai 3-part Filet

Madai or red sea bream is a popular fish eaten all year round in Japan, but is often eaten during seasonal events like New Year’s and cherry blossom season.

In this second installation of the Hetakuso Bocho (“unskilled knife”) Series, I gut and filet a sea bream in the commonly used 3-part filet, or sanmai-oroshi method. The video is available on YouTube.

Sea breams in Japanese cuisine come in many forms, as a cooked as well as raw fish.

Hetakuso Bocho Series – Episode 1: Isaki (Striped Pigfish) 3-part filet

This video is the first of several planned productions of Hetakuso Bocho (“Unskilled Knife”).

In the first episode, I gut and filet a striped pigfish, also known as an isaki in Japan. Isaki is best eaten in the summer months (June, July, August), can grow up to 50 cm, and fetch a relatively high price at market.

This fish is known to be tasty grilled or fried, for sushi or as sashimi.

Isaki have a reddish flesh that you might notice resembles red sea bream (when sliced for sashimi and sushi) but has a little more fat and softer flesh when eaten raw. If raw fish is not your thing, you need to be careful not to overcook isaki as doing so may result in it becoming dry and not so tasty. That is, unless you have some tartar or cocktail sauce, but in my opinion that doesn’t do justice to a fish that can cost $20 or more, and certainly not to be confused with the stuff you get for fish n’ chips.

Picking out a good Isaki can be difficult as the common rule of thumb involves checking the fish’s eyes — the more clear and full, the better — but with even good isaki the eyes are a bit cloudy. I always try to choose gerth over eyes, but if I can confirm both the better.

MetroSushi presents the Happy Tuna Video

It took 72 hours and 3 and a half minutes of footage, but it’s finished and up on YouTube!

Metropolitan Sushi (MetroSushi) presents the happiest video about Tuna on the web.

Okay, it looks like amateur compared to the countless videos out there, but in the Happy Tuna Video, I was able to combine a few things I like very much: tuna photography, tuna videos, and tunes by the Rubettes.

Happy Tuna Video on YouTube

(Click here for the hi-definition version)

Hopefully the first of many more tribute videos!

Hope you like it!

Great Octopus Balls

I really like sushi and sashimi, but had a hard time with eating it when octopus, or, tako is on the menu.

My Japanese friends would tell me, “Oh, that’s because you haven’t had it fresh!” or, “You haven’t had `good` tako!” etc.

Tako, which has the same pronunciation as the famous traditional Mexican dish, was always difficult for me. So, what I did one day at the request of my wife was make homemade takoyaki, also known as the often mocked “octopus balls.”

Normally, you can’t make them without a special grill, but I happened to land a new grill with a special adapter included.

The picture attached is the result of my new grill and a simple recipe I found on Cookpad, but if you search for “takoyaki recipe”, you’re bound to get many options. I used a pancake batter that was modified especially for takoyaki.

They were very tasty and great right off the grill, topped with special sweet and tangy takoyaki sauce, mayo, seaweed powder (aonori), and bonito flakes. Barbecue sauce might be good, too… Since then, I’ve opened up to octopus more and more, even enjoying comfortably the spicy dish takowasabi.

If you’re like me and aren’t an octopus fan, try a couple takoyaki instead.

Holy Mackerel! Err, Maguro! World’s most expensive Tuna sells at Tsukiji Market, Tokyo for 56Million

TOKYO, Japan – This morning, Tsukiji Fish Market auction was the scene of the most expensive maguro (tuna) sold in history. The 269kg lunker sold for a whopping 56.49million yen. At current exchange rates (77 yen per US dollar), that puts it at approx. $733,000! Per kilogram, the price is 210,000 yen or approx. $2,727.

The last record breaking tuna sold for 32.49 million yen a year ago.

Video is here:

How much sushi can you make outta that!?
The article (Japanese) is here: http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20120105-00000028-jij-soci

Happy 2012!!!!

W00t happy new year’s!!!!!

Fresh fish equals good fish – not always

I was reading a comprehensive guide to eating good fish and I came across an interesting chapter. It basically disproved the commonly held belief that delicious fish tastes so simply because it’s fresh. Being both a consumer and preparer of sushi and other seafood dishes, I had started to believe that making a truly delicious fish has more to do with the skill of the chef rather than merely the ingredients on hand, much like how an artist can create a beautiful image from little more than a ballpoint pen and a cocktail napkin. (Of course food and art are a bit different, but sushi has long been regarded as both a delicacy and an art inside and outside of Japan…I no longer think that seriously about sushi as an art form.)

Experts will tell you that after meeting its demise, a lot is going on inside a fish’s body that affect its taste. Depending on the type of fish, it can turn out quite different from the time it is caught until it finally reaches the kitchen, regardless of how much ice you packed it with.

I have written in the past that choosing a fish is very important, from when and where it was caught and killed, to the means of transport from sea to shop (I might have forgotten to add that the “emotional” state of the fish is also noteworthy). However, the “when” is particularly important in the “fresh equals delicious” discussion.

Industrialization and the advent of refrigeration and food transport technologies have gifted people living away from shore with the enjoyment of genuine fresh fish, but at the same time, this has cheated people from appreciating aged or “ripened” fish. “Ripened” is kind of strange when talking about fish, and dead fish at that, but if you put it in the context of fresh fruit, I think you’ll get the idea. In short, some fish taste (much) better when eaten soon after, or several hours (even weeks) after being “picked from the branch” (slaughtered). Much like how you might leave a freshly harvested red delicious apple in the vegetable crisper to ripen, a red sea bream is said to be best 24 hours after the finishing blow.

A biological explanation why this happens is explained here but below is an abbreviated explanation. After death, a substance known as ATP in the fish’s flesh is broken down by another substance called inosine. This occurs during the first stages of fish rigor mortis. The more the inosine works, the tastier the fish gets. It’s said that when the inosine reaches critical mass, the fish tastes most delicious and is thus “ripe”. When the fish goes stiff, that’s when things start to get stinky and not so tasty. (the above apparently goes for meat as well)

*I’m not sure why my source did not also cover the nutritional impact of this “strategic decay” as it only seems to mention taste. Maybe I’ll blog about that some other day.

As mentioned above, different fish have short or long windows of opportunity. So, maybe I will make a chart for different fish based on existing research and personal experience.

So, it might be true that the best chefs, especially sushi chefs, need also be experts in fish postmortem biology. But, when you’re choosing your fish to impress that special someone, be they a loved one or a high paying customer, knowing the time of death, cause of death, and type of fish involved may require knowledge more along the lines of forensic science!

After note: The pitfall of going through all the above is, who the hell can taste the difference between a regular fresh fish and a “ripened” fresh fish? I guess that kind of thing only happens in the comics…

Ginger makes Saba – Mackerel taste good!

Saba or mackerel, is a pretty awesome fish that is available all year round and is reasonably priced.

It’s most commonly consumed grilled and is on most set menus (teishoku) of restaurants that offer fish. Saba is also enjoyed as pickled fish, heavily salted before being marinated in vinegar, which allow it to be consumed raw (or close to raw) in sushi or as sashimi. Shime-saba (“she-may-sah-bah”) is the name for this sour yet tasty dish, which I have attempted to make a couple time in the last few weeks – with mixed success.

The thing is, even well-made shime-saba tastes very sour and took me a while to get used to. Saba is already a very oily fish and that’s enough to deter the inexperienced sushi/sashimi eater.

There are some ways around the fishy taste (sorry, I’ve no ideas for the smell).

What I’ve done for the sushi in the photo is make shime-saba according to a simple recipe (look for it in a near-future blog post). In order to make it a little easier to eat (hey, even I need some help these days), what I do is I put freshly minced ginger instead of wasabi between the fish and the sushi rice. Ginger is a very good way of getting rid of annoying tastes and flavors emitted by ingredients like red meat or fishy seafood – too much ginger may ruin the sushi, but just enough can really do the trick.

Another idea of mine is to mix ginger with vinegar and sugar during the sushi rice making process. That way, the rice, which is already sour tasting, can assist in taking the edge off of a fishy sushi ingredient like saba, sanma, or aji.

The bill for my experimentation with saba has been a bit higher than my other sushis. The saba I used for the sushi pictured in this post was a 10-inch goma-saba (named so because of the spotted pattern on its body, and not to be confused with the Kyushu delicacy “goma saba”) and cost approx $7.80. I asked the fish seller why so expensive, to which he replied, “you can’t go wrong with this saba, perfect for shime-saba, but a waste if you simply salted it for grilling”. So, because I’ve eaten my fair share of grilled salted saba, I decided to expand into raw saba despite the price.

Merry Christmas 2011 from Sushi Break

Wishing everyone health, happiness, sushiness, and a great 2012!

Today, I received a pop-up Christmas card from my wife. It shows Santas eating sushi at a kaitenzushi restaurant. The kaiten (conveyor belt) moves as your open/close the card. Great work by the peeps at Sanrio! Not including the patrons and staff, the card gives a pretty accurate rendering of a real kaitenzushi restaurant. Even the prices are realistic. Probably one of the more creative things I’ve seen come out of the Japanese gift card industry in recent years.

Sharp Knives for Delicious Sushi and More

Probably the most important tool in your sushi arsenal, your knife can make or break your sushi or other dishes that require the utmost care during preparation.

These two Japanese knives, both Minosaku pieces, are works of art in themselves, and used correctly can result in some pretty memorable dinners, especially sushi.

Just because you bought a prime piece of fish doesn’t mean you can treat it like a piece of bologna. I happen to like bologna, but let me be a little more precise. Taking a serrated (‘toothed’) steak knife to your expensive sushi ingredients is not such a good idea. Torn fish meat (or vegetables, fruit, beef, etc.), the result of using such a knife, leaks fish essence, and while that may sound like a lofty way of describing it, trust me it does make a difference in terms of taste and nutritional value when it comes chow time.

I’m not a scientist, but the generally excepted principle is that the destruction of cells due to jagged or poorly kept blades results in the loss of the essence, which to my understanding is more than just blood and flesh. I’m also not a pro chef, but ask anyone who is, and they will probably agree that sharp knives make the best food.

So, if you’re slicing fish for sushi or sashimi, use a straight edge knife like the ones pictured above, as they do the least amount of damage with each stroke. A wipe or a rinse after each cut is a good way to ensure that the knife is doing its best each time it comes in contact with your fish, meat, veggies or other ingredients.

It goes without saying that good knives need proper care, as they do less good of a job the more you use them. That’s why I got the two knives above cleaned and sharpened by a seasoned “street smithy”, an elderly man who loves nothing better than to fix the neighborhood’s knives, scissors and other blades. It beats having to deal with a knife that ceases to perform at its best. It also beats the pants off of trying to sharpen your blade yourself, which can be dangerous to yourself as well as potentially ruin your knife.

How to Gut a Pacific Saury | With Video

In a previous blog post, I quickly introduced the Pacific Saury, or “Sanma” (“Autumn Sword Fish”). This time, I’ll give a few amateur tips on how to gut one of these tasty yet delicate fish. The advice below may help you with some finer points, but the accompanying video is also a good visual tool for your reference.
Warning: If you’re easily offended by the butchering of fish, please stop reading and do not play the video — I’m not trying to be cruel to fish, but just telling it how it is.

*I’m gutting this saury with the intention of making sashimi or sushi, so I have no need for the head. If you are frying your saury, you might want to leave the head attached since there is still flesh that’s worth picking at.

Step 1: Prepare your tools
Basically all you’ll need is a knife — if your saury was bought at a fish market, they should have already taken off the scales, but they are still there, use a scale remover.
Make sure your knife is razor sharp and NOT serrated — serrated blades do a good job of ripping fish flesh, but what a waste of a fish… preserve the nutritional and aesthetic qualities of your fish by always using a straight edged knife.

Step 2: Cut Off the Head — In the video below, I point to the area just behind the the pectoral fin. I messed up here, because I could avoided wasted by cutting directly behind the gills, which are a bit forward of the pectoral fins. As the saying goes, Sry, Im still noob. Anyway, the head comes off.

Step 3: Remove the guts — Also in the video, I point at where the saury’s internal organs are. Basically, the saury is just a little eating machine with a fast digestive sytem, so that means little mess with a large stomach. It’s also easy to identify where the guts begin and end, hence my indication with my along along the saury’s belly. What I do is I make an entry cut into the saury’s – I know it’s gross – anus, and while gently and patiently negotiating my blade towards the head of the fish. Of course, I take advantage of the sharpness of my blade rather than forcefully push and cut.
Now that the guts have been revealed, I take them out with my fingers or the tip of my knife, being careful not to make a mess of things. Afterwards, I take my saury over to the sink for a light rinsing.

Not so tough, is it? Enjoy the video!

Author’s note: Use of language with reference to butchering of the fish above is in no way meant to disrespect metropolitan sushi readers sensitive to such content. If you have taken offense, please refer to the warning at the beginning of this blog post.