sushi anyone???

[Oldsarge]

Good advice. There is a truly strange fashion running around now among the more pretentious "foodies" for eating fish that is still twitching from being killed out of the restaurant tank. It's another of those odd Japanese fetishes that make absolutely no culinary sense but there you are. Fuggedaboudit! Blaiz is right. Let the fillets rest.

[Crazys13]

It's usually a good idea to let the whole fish stay on ice overnight to make it much easier to filet. I've seen the difference, it's night and day.

[iPirate]

i went diving today and caught a nice large black cod and an olive i'll put some fillets in the fridge.

[Crazys13]

Let us know how they turn out, whether cooked or raw!

[sciencemike]

May i suggest something. The key to great sushi is getting the rice correctly. It requires rice vinegar, and sugar, and letting it cool just right, and stirring it only enough.

The fish and the nori (please remember to toast it )are easy. So i recommend that anyone can be a great sushi chef if you just go by your local sushi restaurant on your way home from spearing. Just buy sushi rice already prepared. And if you are friends enough with them, just trade the rice for a nice head, or filet. Also have them throw in some ponzu sauce.

With a great room temperature sushi rice, ponzu, wasabi and your fresh fish, you cant go wrong. Might i add in also getting some fresh green chives and some sesame seeds to toast as well, and maybe a bit of toasted sesame seed oil for the diced fish that you scrape off the bones. Because remember when you fillet a fish you leave all kinds of great meat on the bones. take your spoon and run it down the bones making a thhhhhhwrrrrrrrpppppp noise. In your spoon will be loads of small pieces of meat. Add in some sesame oil, and fresh chives, and a pinch of sesame seed and eat like tar-tar. Or use this for your rolls so you can save your prize pieces of fillet for your sashimi. You will be amazed at how much fish you get off the bones like this.

[Crazys13]

Now I need to go out for sushi, because I won't be spearing any for a while! My mouth is watering...

[drunkinbda]

anyone got any thoughts of hogfish sushi..be it sashimi, nigiri, or maki...?

[blaiz]

Originally Posted by drunkinbda

anyone got any thoughts of hogfish sushi..be it sashimi, nigiri, or maki...?

Is your hogfish a type of trigger fish? I have heard that poke' made from hoggies is pretty good. If you are not familiar with the term poke' its kind of like the hawaiian version of tartar.

I dont have an exact recipe, I usually just season, and oil to taste but here are the ingredients.

take your desired amount of fish (raw) cubed into 1/2 in or 3/4in cubes

Chop up green onion, yellow onion, garlic, ginger,

mix ingredients with enough sesame oil to thouroughly coat all fish and onions.

Add toasted (black or white) sesame seeds, chili flakes (optional), Hawaiian rock salt (or mediteranian), pepperm and a bit of soy sauce.

My secret ingredient (shhh... dont tell anyone!) is saracha. Its a tai hot sauce that comes in a clear bottle with a green twist cap with a chicken on the label. Its not too spicy but has awesome flavor.

Mix up all ingredients and wa la... poke'! my favorite types are ahi, uku (green jobfish), aku (skipjack tuna), Ulua, or any other fish that makes good sashimi!

There are many different variations on poke' here too. Basically all the same ingredients pluss a few more i.e

Shoyu poke- add a little brown sugar and lots of soy sauce

Korean poke- add kimchee

limu poke- add seaweed (edible type found in hawaii)

wasabi poke- add wasabi paste or powder.

This same recipe can be used for tako (octopus) poke'. Tako has to be tenderized, cooked, and thinly sliced.

My favorite tako poke is the kimchee tako poke'. Friggen awesome!

[monchan]

Oldsarge says.

That only requires primium soy sauce in a bowl, some miso, some hot chinese mustard

I find some soy too strong in taste, especially the soy you can get that's made for sashimi. Over here you can get a great soy called kakishoyu or oyster soy sauce great flavour, and it lets you taste the fish. You could try a lightish soy and add a few drops of oyster suace. Sounds strange but try it.

Hot chinese mustard? I guess you mean wasabi/ japanese horseraddish?

If making sushi rolls seems difficult, don't make them. Just make the sushi rice as metioned before, make tight shapes like a egg thats been flattened a little and place your fish on top. this type of sushi is often eaten by just using your hands and no chopsticks, though thesedays it's a bit of an old mans way of eating it. but its easy.

Crazy13 said

For some reason I was only thinking of chemical pollution, wasn't considering the bacteria pollution.

I wont comment on this except to say, sometimes fresh fish can have parrasites.
If you ever go to Tokyo one of the most popular dating spots is a small museum called the parrasite museum, its popular with young couples on there first or second date because the girl freaks out and gets in close to the man HUgs him as she is scared or disgusted. Anyway they have a display with parrasites from salmon sashimi, made someone quite sick apparently. You can also see a tape worm someone had for 11years, Cant remember but it was 11m or 22m long. its sick there.

In Blaizes recipe he refers to something called panko, this means bread crums.
"Pan" is bread and "ko" means small/ little. Two types dried or fresh shredded bread.

Ipirate.

i mostly catch cod and a few striped sea perch, are any of these good for sushi or sashimi

Not sure about the perch but most cod here are great for either sushi or sashimi.

Oldsarge said,

Sushi is only safe when made from pelagic or deep saltwater species.

Not true those types of fish are larger and can be targeted easily by fishing boats so those types of fish are what usually end up in restaurants.

Many reef fish make great sushi/ sashimi Two of the fish I like to get are great for this purpose, but you cannot buy them and very rarely find them in sushi restaurants here. Ishidai (Japanese knifejaw) and Kobudai. The later I will only take if it's a good fish, reproduction is slow.

Blaize said

Only one way to find out I would suggest that when you filet your catch leave it in the fridge over night. The meat will loosen up a bit and be a lot more tender. Fresh isnt always the best for sashimi. When a fish is caught and dies the meat tends to tighten up a bit, a fresh killed fish (unless stoned, bled, and put on ice immediately) will tend to make "tough" sashimi. A filet left to loosen up for a night will make very tender sashimi. I have learned this through personal experience

I completely agree. How long you leave it in the fridge though can vary depending on the fish. Some fish are good striaght out of the ocean but not that many. MOst fish will usually taste better for being left in the fish. The flavour starts to come out as the flesh softens.

Some fish though will always be a little tough ( Often reef fish) Like the Ishidai I mentioned before and leather jackets (they make good sushi, rare to get in the sushi shops here and usually cost a little extra) With this type of fish the thing to do is after letting it soften in the fridge, slice the fish quite thinnly 2-3mm. Then wash the sliced fish in ice water for 4-5 seconds. This causes the flesh to firm up a little and shrink a little, but when you eat it, it will be more tender. If the water turns quite milky it means the fish has a good fat contents. means good taste.

Sciencemike,

The fish and the nori (please remember to toast it )

You must be confused with korean nori, it's toasted and often flavoured with seseme
seed oil and salt. tastes great, but japaanses nori is used as you buy it.

Let me finish with one of my favourite recipes.

Any white flesh sashimi fish, this is good for the scrapy bits.
dice or slice the fish it's up to you. I usually use the untidy leftovers
when I make sashimi.

Get some dried wakame. (a type of seaweed) Most asian shops
will sell it or something like it.
soak it it water till it is soft and expanded. 3mins. or so.
Squeeze as much water out as possible.
Mix it with the fish.
Then top with some kind of dressing.

These work well:
Soy
Ponzu (as sciencemike said)
I often use Goma dressing ( japanese sesame dressing) once again
Some asian shops will have it. This is my fav. too.
Anything really. many salad dressings are good.

Then lastly sprinkle with toasted seseme seeds.
Makes a good side dish, puts a bit a colour on the table (green)
not quite a salad but really nice.

Most Of what I wrote, My wifes father told me. He's a chef here
and has tought me a bit about the local fish I bring home

Anyway sushi rolls while being very common in other countries,
Here they are often bought from super markets and the like.
If you go to a sushi place. most sushi it just on a bed of rice, but not all.

[Oldsarge]

Originally Posted by monchan

Anyway sushi rolls while being very common in other countries,
Here they are often bought from super markets and the like.
If you go to a sushi place. most sushi it just on a bed of rice, but not all.

I would suspect that's true. I know that here in SoCal, my favorite sushi bar will only make rolls if you specifically request them. All the rest is as monchan reports. Wonderful stuff, sushi.

[Crazys13]

Boy, you can say that again!

[slingshaft]

Man it is so good to hear that other spearos take their catch to the next level! I've always said that speargunners have the opportunity to eat like kings, look great, and live forever! Here are some of the ingredients I use often. I'm actually out of Oyster Sauce, always buy the best, it will have more flavor and less salt. You only use a small amount,and can use less soy sauce. In the picture, on the right, is pickled radish. It is already cut into long strips, so it is easy to lay onto the sushi rice. You can find everything at the local Asian Markets. By the way,Blaiz, I want to thank you for the kind compliments you posted about young Jennifer's performance with Janis Joplin's band. She is a work in progress.

[slingshaft]

The little green bottle is Dill, and the bottle on the right is high quality fish sauce.

[blaiz]

Sraracha!!

[drunkinbda]

im still a little astonished people sushi up their personal catch..
doin that scares the crap outta me but i gotta admit i am tempted...

i guess the worst thing we really have here is cig (well at least theoretically, ive never heard of a case), so maybe it really doesnt matter if im cooking it or not