Jiro Sushi Notes

Sushi ingredients in spring and summer

Seafood on the scene

Omi, Shinko, sardines, bamboo? Fish, sole, small perch, perch, island trevally, small amberjack, small cuttlefish, soft silk, cockle, abalone, cave, mantis shrimp, bonito

Newborn bonito and migratory bonito The taste of fish is like the difference between sprouts and maple leaves, cherry blossoms and chrysanthemums, so we don’t make bonito nigiri sushi in autumn.

While Tokyo plum blossoms are still blooming sporadically, the wooden boxes used to hold ingredients in sushi restaurants are already full of spring. Just when you feel that the cockles are getting thicker and softer, the long-awaited bonito has begun to appear. The seasons for mantis shrimp, bamboo fish, sole and abalone are also approaching. Then, when the new son and the little cuttlefish appear, it is midsummer. In such a season, what will the owner of "Sukiyabashi Jiro" Ono Jiro do with these seasonal catches?

Bright-skinned fish/Oji, Shinko

"The King of Sushi" makes the throat sound

"Sushi The "king of sushi" is Oji (a small squid about ten centimeters long). When I take one bite, my throat will make a gurgling sound. This is the evidence. Everyone laughed when I said this, but there is a real sound at the moment after chewing and swallowing. Especially when the taste of the sushi on top and the vinegar rice on the bottom of the sushi match perfectly.

Then, "Ah! This world is delicious!" This feeling will keep coming back.

Of course, the other sushi in our store is also delicious. But having said that, they have never made sounds from their throats, so they don't have that real feeling. Muscle is the cheapest fish used in nigiri sushi. But if done properly, it is the "King of Nigiri Sushi" that makes the throat sound.

The so-called proper handling means adjusting the amount of salt and the degree of vinegar pickling according to the different texture of each amberjack, especially for new ones (referring to young amberjacks under five centimeters). A slight error can make a difference of a thousand miles. Each fish has different amounts of fat, different thicknesses, and different sizes. If they are all put in the same pot and marinated in vinegar for the same time, you will never make nigiri sushi that will make your throat sound. Because it is the new croissant, the pickling time must be considered one by one according to the subtle differences in size and texture, even a second or two, so that all the croquettes will have the same taste.

I have encouraged all the juniors in the store to do this over and over again, because this is something that we must work hard to achieve no matter what.

If they can't make the same taste and can't even pass my own taste test, it will be very troublesome for me as a sushi maker. Because once these ingredients are put into my hands, they will be put into the guests' mouths immediately, and it is too late for me to make any corrections.

Speaking of this, I remembered that when I traveled to Kyushu before, I had eaten sushi at a sushi restaurant I passed by. As soon as I swallowed it, I didn't know whether it was because of the fishy smell or because it wasn't marinated well, but it just tasted terrible. Just when my companion and I were whispering: "What on earth did you do to create such a messy taste?" The master probably mistakenly thought that we were complimenting him, right? He began to explain triumphantly how much salt was used and how long it had to be marinated in vinegar.

The old chef must not have tasted it himself. Because I didn’t adjust while testing the taste, I ended up with such an unpleasant taste. It doesn’t matter if you don’t cook it yourself, it doesn’t matter if you ask a young chef to cook it. But you must taste the finished product yourself. If the taste starts to change, you must adjust it back.

"What I make is never wrong."

This is the wrong attitude, as it is with everything. The gap over the years is just the slightest error in the beginning, which has led to it getting bigger and worse along the way.

After the sushi master finished it, he said: "It's done!"

Then he sent it to the guests: "Please use it!"

But he didn't check it at all. I felt that the food I served tasted different,

"It's okay with me, it's the customer's tongue."

This attitude is wrong. I often tell my young colleagues in the store this.

Something similar happened this morning. The vinegar-pickled xinzi didn't seem to have much flavor, but after trying it, it turned out to be just as I expected. This kind of vinegar-pickled xinzi does not go well with vinegar rice, so I said to my young friends: "Strengthen the salt part." However, after adjusting it several times, I still couldn't get over it. So I kept "trying again" and "trying again". After testing the taste many times, the amount of sushi I needed to make at noon was no longer enough. This happens all the time.

"How does the new sushi taste when the production season has just begun?"

Customers often ask this question. At this time, if the sushi restaurant owner has not tried the taste, when making sushi, Isn't it too rude to the guests to not be sure that "it's absolutely delicious!" Because we don’t charge for free, we charge based on how much each session costs.

That’s why I try the taste of ingredients several times a day.

Especially for small muscles, I try it once in the morning, once at noon, and once in the evening. I even pickle it to prepare it for tomorrow, and I try it after closing. Just because you try again and again until you are satisfied, there is no chance of customers complaining that it tastes "unpalatable".

When it comes to quenching the cravings of customers during non-dinner hours, the ones in our store are so delicious. Because of this, some customers order ham as a side dish to go with wine.

"It pinches really well!" they will blurt out involuntarily.

Sushi includes tuna, squid, scallops, white-fleshed fish and other raw fish. No matter how you cut it or shape it, the taste is the same. But the nigiri sushi made with the sashimi that is specially seasoned to go with the vinegared rice in our store is absolutely delicious.

Because when we decide the taste, we not only pay attention to whether the seasoning of sushi and vinegar rice is coordinated, but also use a brush to apply a layer of seasoning soy sauce on the ingredients before serving the freshly made sushi to the guests (note ), we even take into account the flavor of that layer of soy sauce. Therefore, our store's sushi is mixed with our store's vinegar rice to make sushi, and then it is coated with our store's seasoning soy sauce. When you eat it in one bite: "Ah! It's so delicious!" Customers often say Will blurt it out without thinking.

(Note) Seasoned soy sauce refers to soy sauce that is prepared by adding the store’s unique recipe including wine and other ingredients. This method of smearing sushi ingredients with seasoned soy sauce on the bristles and then serving them to customers is a method of the Edomae school.

In the past, sushi restaurants in Tokyo would change the type of bright-skinned fish from small fish to small bamboo fish as soon as the spring season comes. After the Second World War, I worked at a small restaurant in Hamamatsu. When I was twenty-six years old, I entered Kyobashi's "Yoshino" as an old apprentice. It was Showa 26, and the situation was still the same.

I don’t know when it started, but later I had to prepare my muscles even in summer.

This is all because customers want to eat delicious ham all year round. And they mistakenly believe that they can eat delicious small muscles in the summer when it is not the production season. Because where there is demand, there is supply, so sushi restaurants have to work hard to find ways to have delicious sushi on the table all year round.

When I started working as an apprentice, whenever the Kotake fish production season came, the small fish off the coast of Tokyo had already grown into adult fish (more than fifteen centimeters), so it was Kotake's turn. ?fish. At this time, the sushi used in Tokyo sushi restaurants may have been produced in Chiba, right? The production area of ??the ham used in Tokyo is limited to Chiba in the north, and I have never heard of anyone using ham from Ibaraki.

Although the new seeds sold in the market were not local, the farthest away was the Atsumi Peninsula in Aichi Prefecture, and the new baby season there at that time was much later than it is now. .

At that time, it would take a long time to transport it from Kyushu to Tokyo, and even ice could not keep it fresh. Because the new ones of a certain size have to be sorted out locally in Atsumi and then shipped to Tokyo, it will not be ready until early August at the earliest for the sushi to be served to customers.

Recently, I have been able to eat new seeds in mid-July, which should be produced in Maisaka Port (located in Shizuoka). Sometimes the new ones are so small that it takes four to make a consistent sushi. In the past, such small fish must have been thrown away at the fishing port because of the trouble of handling them. Because when the young fish were transported thousands of miles to Tsukiji, their stomachs were all gone and they could no longer be used.

However, we are now in an era of cars running all over the streets. Starting around Showa 45, Styrofoam boxes with excellent ice retention effects have become increasingly popular. Moreover, just one box of new seeds at the beginning of the production season can be sold at an unimaginably high price, so even if it is only one kilogram, it will be shipped. If we compare sardines, whose prices have been rising in recent years, I wonder how many boxes of sardines need to be sold to earn the same money as a box of new sardines.

This is why new children appear earlier and earlier.

By the way, the first batch of new seeds sold on July 12, 2008 fetched the most expensive price in history, with a kilogram asking for 60,000 yuan. The original price of a new sushi is about 600 yen. The size is about two pieces of sushi rolled into one. If it is two pieces of nigiri sushi, the price is the price of one piece multiplied by four. Of course, this does not take into account that it is ten times more troublesome than the usual one-tailed muscle.

Whenever we encounter customers in the store who chatter non-stop about Xinzi’s advertisements, we will inadvertently talk about the purchase cost of Xinzi while chatting and laughing.

"This is really the first batch this year. If calculated based on the purchase price, two pieces cost 2,400 yen. And these are just the ingredients on the sushi." Of course, I You won't tell the truth like this.

"Then... please stop pinching me first." If you tell the truth, you may disappoint the guest.

Oops, I'm not asking for favors, this is the truth. The price is always the same regardless of whether it's new or small: always 500 yen. If the price exceeds this price, customers probably won’t be able to accept it, right? This is why Okinigiri sushi is the most expensive.

"You've already lost money, so why bother?" People often ask this. Because this is what a sushi chef insists on. Is it a profit or a loss? There is simply no way to control this at this time. Because this year's small muscle begins with the new child on this day.

"Hey guys! How do you think? This is this year's new kid!" I was making sushi with this motivation.

However, when it comes to the price of new rice, it was also expensive in 2006. It was around 60,000 yen per kilogram for two years in a row. However, in Heisei 9, the price of the first batch of new sushi dropped to 35,000 yen per kilogram, so weren't there more sushi restaurants selling new sushi at that time? Even if the price has dropped, expensive things are still expensive, but at least you don't have to be so impulsive about losing money, so you can feel relieved.

Although I just mentioned that "small muscles are present all year round", as everyone knows, the production season of small muscles is from early autumn to winter. Obviously this is the case, but delicious ham is available all year round. Why is this?

This is really incredible. Japan is a long and narrow island country, so there may be situations where "it is the spawning season here" and "the spawning season is not here yet", but the spawning season of fish should be around the same time. This is because the small muscles do not lay eggs in August in Hokkaido, but they lay eggs in March in Kyushu.

Moreover, in my mind, Mikawa (Aichi Prefecture), Japan’s No. 1 miniscule, would be understandable if it was produced half a month later than Kyushu, but when Mikawa has already produced minis, Kyushu is still looking at it. There is no trace of small muscles.

There, the first place to produce small muscles is Maisaka, followed by the adjacent Benten Island to the west, and beyond that, you can’t catch it. After catching it once or twice, for some reason it became found only in Mikawa or Atsumi. The small-tailed fish probably wouldn't migrate in large groups from the Hamanako area to the sea off Aichi Prefecture.

And even if it appears outside Mikawa for a while, the amberjack has already grown into a tail that can be squeezed into a consistent size.

But at this time, there were no new children in Kyushu, which was relatively south. From the perspective of ordinary people, the situation should be exactly the opposite, because the sea in Kyushu is relatively warm.

So why is this happening? I've been wondering why.

The final conclusion after racking my brains is as follows: "The small muscle is a fish species that spawns twice a year."

If this statement is true, the amberjack spawns twice a year. If so, then the above situation would make sense. However, although the difference in origin can be explained, by analogy, new seeds should be produced twice a year. If not, the statement "spawn twice a year" is not valid.

The whole story here is really hard to figure out. It’s incredible that there are small muscles in Mikawa first, then Kyushu, and the areas in between are almost completely unfishable.

Also, it is equally incredible that Kyushu’s small muscles can be pinched to a consistent size almost all year round.

"The weather is already so cold, why is it still so small in size now?"

"Although there is a certain period for fish to spawn, this fish is really It was born at a very late stage, and it was an illegitimate child born out of an affair."

Although there are also such rumors, no one knows the real reason. Although I am over seventy, I still have to live and learn.

Bright-skinned fish/sardines

The taste will be completely different depending on the season

I have never heard of a sushi restaurant in Tokyo that invites people The image of a live high-end sardine is used as the advertising sign.

"We don't have that kind of fish that is not popular in our store." The higher-end sushi restaurants have this stereotype.

There is another reason why sardines are not usually prepared, and that is that it is not easy to maintain their freshness. It's just sardines, and they can't be sold for much, so it's not cost-effective to spend so much time on them.

Sardines are a fish that chases time, because if they are put directly into the wooden box containing ingredients with a snap, the color of the blood and meat (the fish tissue contains the most oxygen and blood in the muscles) will be darker. Red) will oxidize and turn into black purple, so you must clean the head and internal organs of the sardine early in the morning, wash them carefully with salt water, and soak them in ice cubes. If you don't do this, it won't stay fresh until the evening.

Also, if it is refrigerated in the refrigerator, its water content will be lost and its freshness will also decrease. So it can only be placed in the freezer. Wasn't there a period of uproar in Tokyo due to lack of water and the inability to obtain ice? At that time, we even bought a special refrigerator for it to prevent water loss. In short, sardines are the most troublesome and difficult fish to deal with.

In addition, its filtering conditions are also very strict.

If it is not the best sardine that can rival my offshore bluefin tuna, conger eel, or akakai, I will not serve it to my guests. Because it would be a bad thing if there is a difference in taste during the meal.

Therefore, I chose seasonal sardines caught by "day trip" fishing boats that go out to sea early in the morning and return to port in the evening. That is, Nakaha (sardines that grow to about fifteen centimeters are called "Nakaha sardines") and Oba (sardines that grow to about twenty centimeters are called "sardines") caught in the Choshi (Boso Peninsula) or Misaki (Miura Peninsula) areas. "Dayu Sardin"). Especially Dayu, if it is not as plump as the one produced in Xiaojinguan, we will not use it, so customers who have seen the ingredient box will definitely say: "This is the first time I have seen such fat sardines in my life."

But what’s in the wooden box is a sample. After the customer places their order, the sardines soaked in ice from the freezer are taken out, and then the fish body is disassembled and shaped into sushi.

The plump sardines in season have an alarmingly thick layer of fat between the skin and the meat.

Although it is very fat, it has no fishy smell and is not disgusting. The fish is filleted with a blade when it is the freshest. The contrast between the white oil and the bright red flesh is so beautiful that it is fascinating. Shape into sushi and apply seasoning soy sauce to make it more colorful.

"What do you do with the samples in the wooden box?" Customers often ask this.

In fact, the food was cooked in the back of the kitchen. Isn’t that the joy of running a sushi restaurant? Sardines are so delicious when cooked. Once the fish is cooked, you can immediately tell how it tastes. Out-of-season sardines only taste salty when cooked, but if they are plump sardines in season, they will be even more delicious after cooking. They are so delicious that people wonder: "Why on earth are they so delicious?" and eaten raw. Compared with the time, it has a different taste.

So, every time I finish eating the hot freshly cooked sardines, I have a deep feeling that this is really a privilege that only sushi restaurant owners can enjoy.

However, only sardines are like this. The taste is completely different between the season and the non-season. Although there is a constant supply of sardines in the market all year round, sardines are only made into sushi during the season. Year-round, delicious Nakaha sardines begin to be produced in Tokyo Bay in mid-April. It is still in the middle feather stage for about two and a half months. At this time, the fat of the sardines is not rich enough, so the taste is refreshing and mild. By the time the rainy season is coming, it has accumulated a lot of fat and grown into a round big feather sardine. The best time to eat sardines is right after the rainy season.

Of course, the taste of Dayu sardine is stronger, but which one is more delicious, Dayu or Zhongyu? In my opinion, the two are really indistinguishable. Big feathers are as good as big feathers, and medium feathers are as good as medium feathers. They all have attractive aroma and delicious taste at the same time.

The wooden food boxes decorated with sardines will no longer be seen in November. The store will no longer stock ingredients after early December. Because sardines have begun to hold eggs at this time, their bodies are thin and only their heads are big. If you eat this kind of sardine, your mouth will be easily pierced by the tiny fish bones, and it has no taste.

Bright-skinned fish/bamboo fish

Do not pickle it in vinegar, it is best to eat it raw

The recently popular Guanzhu fish (Japanese fish) The horse mackerel that has withstood the impact of wind and waves for a long time in the "Bungo Strait" where the water flows of the Seto Inland Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet is called "Seki Bamboo" and is produced in Oita and Saga Seki). You can also see it in Tsukiji, but I think What I pinch is a bamboo fish with a smaller tail and a lighter taste (the Chinese character is "真鵵", which is "bamboo fish").

Among the things you can get in Tokyo, I think the best quality one is the bamboo fish from Odawara (Sagami Bay). However, these days it is almost impossible to find them in Tsukiji, and even if they exist, they are very few.

In fact, there are still local catches in Odawara, but the quantity is not large, and it seems that they are all bought and stocked by local restaurants and dry goods stores. Because the dry goods can be sold at a very good price. One wild bamboo fish from Japan costs 400 yen. However, the bamboo fish from Sagami Bay costs 800 yen per fish. It is truly a "dream bamboo fish".

Odawara's bamboo fish is characterized by a slightly sweet fragrance and perfect distribution of oil. Because the whole fish bag is full of fat, the color is a bit white. Just cut it open and you can immediately tell that it is from Sagami Bay. It is such a great fish.

And the taste is not too strong. As soon as you take it in, the delicious taste spreads in your mouth. I once pinched and ate it myself, saying, "It's delicious, it's delicious." I ate thirteen sticks in one go, and I didn't feel tired at all.

However, the sushi restaurant owner has no more "dream fish" to pinch. The bamboo fish I use now mainly comes from Futtsu (Boso Peninsula) in Tokyo Bay. The bamboo fish here is of the highest quality except for Odawara. Tokyo Bay and Sagami Bay are not far from each other, and the bamboo fish produced in these two places have similar tastes.

The production season of bamboo fish is from April to June. From this time until summer, the bamboo fish in Tokyo area is the most delicious, but it is not available in the warm Kyushu area. There are too many traces of bamboo fish. This situation is the same as that of Xiaoji.

And I don’t pickle the bamboo fish in vinegar. If vinegar-pickled bamboo fish and raw bamboo fish are made into sushi at the same time, and then ask me: "Then, which one is more delicious?" Without a second sentence, the raw bamboo fish sushi will definitely win. Because of this, I tried it and compared the results.

In the past, sushi restaurants used to pickle fish in vinegar because it was not fresh enough. Marinate the skin with salt for 30 minutes, then pickle it with vinegar for 30 minutes. When shaping it into sushi, be sure to chew it with minced white-fleshed fish or shrimp. The meat of bamboo fish is soft and tender, so it can be marinated quickly and it will taste sour. It will become sour after just 30 minutes, so it should be eaten with sweet fish or shrimp.

Raw bamboo and fish are difficult ingredients to make into sushi because the ground ginger underneath the ingredients will have juice, which prevents the fish and vinegar rice from sticking together tightly, so the sushi will easily slip and lose its shape. , it would be simple if you remove the water. Even a novice can pinch it well. But in this way, the tongue will eat rough fibers, and the taste will be different. Anyone who can make beautiful sushi with juicy grated ginger sandwiched between fish and vinegared rice should be called a "master of sushi making."

This article is excerpted from Excellent Culture/Satomi Shinzo's "The God of Sushi: Jiro Ono's Michelin Spirit: Perseverance, Persistence, and Diligence"