Salted winter yellowtail

On the salted winter yellowtail (shio-kan-buri): "This is something I've been doing ever since my apprentice days, so I'd call it a traditional piece of work. Since it's Setsubun this time, I made the kinko (dried sea cucumber) look like an oni demon. I like slipping in some sense of the season somewhere, without making a big deal of it." Everyone tends to use the word "kan" (cold-season) once winter arrives, but strictly speaking, "kan" properly refers to February.

1. For the salted winter yellowtail: fillet the yellowtail, cut it into 50g pieces, and let it sit under a heavy coating of salt (beta-jio) for about an hour. Rinse off the salt once, blanch briefly (shimofuri), then add water, sake, and dashi kombu and simmer it slowly, skimming the scum as it rises, finishing with light soy sauce. Peel the Tennoji turnip thickly, parboil it, and let it soak up flavor slowly together with the yellowtail.

2. Rehydrate the dried sea cucumber over about a week, changing hot water with straw added in it every day, then put it in a pot and cook until it turns soft, rinse it in water and clean the innards thoroughly, and simmer it in a dashi mixture of 10 parts dashi, 1 part dark soy sauce, and 1 part mirin.

3. Simmer the Kyoto carrot (kintoki ninjin) and rapeseed blossoms (nanohana) in happō dashi.