Culinary Development Lab Recipes
Seared Ayu Sushi
COOKING INGREDIENTS
Culinary Development Lab Recipes
FREE
Ingredients
- Serves 4
- Cost: ¥1,600
- Cooking time: 20 min
- Cooks: 1
Sweetfish
2 whole
Rice
1 gō (180 ml)
- Vegetable sticks
Burdock root
40 g
Leaf ginger
4 stalks
Black sugar
a pinch
Hojicha
a pinch
- Sushi vinegar
Sake lees vinegar
180 ml
Sugar
100 g
Salt
20 g
Grilled bones
to taste
Dried mandarin peel
a pinch
- Smartweed vinegar
Rice gruel broth
90 ml
Rice vinegar
90 ml
Sugar
15 g
Salt
5 g
Water pepper leaf
50 g
Ayu uruka
a pinch
Method
Method
❶ Prepare the ayu. Mix the sushi vinegar. Make the tade-zu, a smartweed vinegar. Prepare the stick vegetables. Cook the sushi rice.
❷ Fillet the ayu into three pieces and lightly salt it (about 30 to 45 minutes). Wipe off the moisture thoroughly and marinate it in red vinegar (about 10 minutes, until the surface turns white). Wash the bones and head with sake and salt, dry them in the sun, and grill until crisp.
❸ For the sushi vinegar, grind the grilled bones and head well in a suribachi mortar, then sift them out. Return them to the mortar, thin with sushi vinegar, and press through a fine sieve.
❹ For the tade-zu, add ten times as much water as rice and heat it to make a thin rice gruel (omoyu). Pick 50g of tade (water pepper) leaves, grind them well in the mortar, and mix in the cooled rice gruel, rice vinegar, sugar, salt, and ayu uruka (fermented ayu innards), combining thoroughly.
❺ For the stick vegetables, cut them as appropriate, dry them in the oven, and deep-fry in oil until crisp.
❻ For the sushi rice, mix rice vinegar into the rice at a ratio of 2 shaku of sushi vinegar per 1 gō of rice. Mix in a little dried mandarin peel.
❼ Using a bamboo sushi mat, roll about 80g of sushi rice per piece into a slender log shape. Shape it, then sear the surface of the ayu with a torch. Afterward, smoke it with a smoking gun using roasted green tea (hojicha) and brown sugar. Cut as appropriate, arrange on a plate, drizzle with the tade-zu, and garnish with the stick vegetables.
Want to check the seasoning blend before you cook?
COMMENT
Thinking of a fish for early summer and an ingredient local to my home prefecture of Kanagawa, sweetfish came to mind. I fillet it into three pieces, apply a light coating of salt, and marinate it in red vinegar. The bones and head are washed in sake-and-salt water and grilled, then ground and passed through a sieve, thinned out with sushi vinegar, and strained until smooth.
I thought it would be good to add the aroma and umami of grilling. Since people tend to catch summer colds and lose their footing health-wise in June, I add dried mandarin peel, which is also used in Chinese medicine, into the sushi rice. The stick vegetables are boiled, run through a blender, then cooked like a crêpe and deep-fried. And then I sear the sweetfish with an 'AMGH burner.' This burner has a piece of charcoal fitted onto its tip, and the far-infrared effect, the same as with real charcoal, brings out aroma and umami, but it doesn't pick up the gas smell that's typical of a regular torch, which makes it convenient.
Since I wanted to leave some of the raw aroma intact, I'm careful not to sear it too much. I smoke it in a smoking gun with hōji-cha and dark brown sugar, giving it the scent of hōji-cha and dark brown sugar, both of which pair well with Japanese cuisine. The spiciness of water pepper and the scent of the smoke linger in the mouth, making for an intriguing flavor.