Sardines are full of nutrients and flavor, but just how to clean them?

To Be Continued: Iwashi Ryori
We are continuing our series on iwashi ryori and ‘cleaning sardines’ precedes an amazing recipe; get ready for ‘sardine meatballs’!

Small Fish
Cooking small fish is still not very common in my homeland, but here in Japan they are ubiquitous and tasty. There are a myriad ways to enjoy sardines and Miwa (AKA Paku) gives us a demo on how to clean them, or most any other kind of small fish.

How to Clean Sardines
As mentioned in a previous article on iwashi ryori (sardine cuisine), sardines are a ‘weak’ fish and they deteriorate quickly. Only the freshest should be used for sushi or sashimi. The bellies are extremely fragile and it is best to just cut the belly out with one cut and pull the innards out. Sardines may have a few scales on them, just run the knife over the skin to remove them as necessary. (That wasn’t necessary for us.)

Cleaning Sardines

Notice the sardine on the bottom, the dark spot on the belly is a tear.

Rinse and check for scales

In Japan, sardines are usually quite small and scales are not an issue. The sardine species and size in your region may vary, so give them a looking over.

Removing the Entrails

Cut off the head

Cut off the head and pull away with your knife

Cut the belly to remove entrails

Pull entrails out with belly

Remove entrails

Make sure that you cut out the anus and intestinal remnants. (Miwa missed on this one.)

Removing the Bones
Next comes removing the bones. The rib bones are so thin that they are easily chewed. The backbone is fine left in for deep fried preparations, but if sauteing, simmering, etc you will want to pull it out, and it comes out easily with a light tug.

Splitting the sardine

Run your thumb along the backbone and separate…

Splitting the sardine

…all the way to the tail.

Voilà!

That was easy! Now for the other half.

Cut the skin around the backbone just before the tail

The tail is a handle!

Pulling out the backbone

Gently pull the backbone out via the tail while holding down with your other hand.

Note: The backbone can be fried to make hone senbei, literally ‘bone cracker’. This is actually very tasty and goes great with beer.

Optional Step: Removing the Skin
It depends on what sardine dish you are making but you will probably want to remove the skin. It’s easy.

Peeling the skin away

Start at the head end, on the top of the sardine (back) and peel the meat away from the skin. The end result will produce two fillets.

Peeling the skin away

Peel the skin away from the second fillet.

Ready to be Iwashi Ryori!

Be sure to catch our next installment of iwashi ryori!

aozakana (青魚) literally, ‘blue fish’ are in season from mid-autumn throughout the winter. These are such species as mackerel (青魚, saba), pacific saury (秋刀魚, sanma), sardine (鰯, iwashi), and jack mackerel (鯵, aji). Their blue colored backs give these well loved fish their Japanese name.

In Japan, the cold months are the time to gorge on fish, and aozakana are the main event. Fish are genki, laid on heavily with fat and rich with oils. Super fresh, simply grilled, this is some of the best cuisine Japan has to offer; uncontrived, straight forward and natural.

Last week I (Peko) was invited to participate in the preparation of an aozakana feast extravaganza with some native foodies here to celebrate the beginning of the next 5 months of exquisitely rich and tasty fish.

We shopped at Nishiki Market (錦商市場店街, nishiki ichiba shotengai) for the fixins. Nishiki Market is the place to go in Kyoto for all the best ingredients for traditional Japanese cuisine. An entire blog could be devoted just to the wonders of Nishiki Market.

The main event for the dinner was of course sabazushi (lightly pickled mackerel pressed on rice and thickly sliced). The sabazushi was actually prepared the day before, so I only have photos of it being sliced. Sabazushi, and many kinds of fish in Japan are said to taste best a day or so after being caught. Saba is the king of aozakana, but there were also a number of other dishes, some cooked some some raw.

I am just going to narrate the photos for each dish and it’s preparation. Here we go, enjoy! I haven’t noted the recipes, but if you can get the fixins, the fish, all you foodies out there can just wing it.

Aji (鯵, jack mackerel) Sashimi Salad

pulling the skin (sorry, bad photo)

The bones of the aji are pulled with a heavy-duty tweezers. (again, sorry, bad photo, the tweezers is blurry)

Battered Sanma Fried with Eggs and Spinach
Sanma (秋刀魚) is a much loved fish in Japan and the characters used for the name are wonderfully suited to this long, silvery fish in season from the autumn; 秋 autumn, 刀 sword, 魚 fish. Sanma are most often grilled whole, with head and guts intact, and eaten with spicy grated daikon radish and a squeeze of sudachi (酢橘), a native Japanese citrus fruit similar to a lime, but with a very unique Japanese flavor.

This rendition of sanma was a first for me.

Cut diagonal and at an angle. Sushi and sashimi is usually cut this way, make it even more beautiful and appealing to the eye.

First, a dusting of chestnut starch, then into the egg and spinach batter. (Any kind of starch will do)

Fry until golden brown

Garnish with some greens — this was really a treat!

Iwashi (Sardine) Sashimi
Iwashi (鰯) is a sardine. Iwashi is often pickled and one of my favorite renditions is fried whole with shoyu and grated ginger.

Cleaning the iwashi was the most time consuming and laborious part of the aozakana feast preparations.

The meat of the iwashi is very soft, especially the belly area. The chinese character for iwashi is; 魚 fish, 弱 weak.

Start with some myoga (茗荷), a ginger-like Japanese yakumi (薬味) flavoring. Myoga and shiso are often served with raw fish to cover any overly fishy odors or tastes. That is the original purpose of wasabi as well.

Start with gutting.

These are going to be eaten raw, the inside is washed very well. The weak belly meat is easily damaged and frayed.

Split them in half and pull the bones out. (The bones are saved for another dish)

Finally, pull the skins off.

Grated ginger is another yakumi.

There are four dainty fillets for each person’s serving. This is served on a bed of sliced myoga and shiso, the grated ginger on the left is generously added to shoyu, for dipping. Iwashi sashimi offers one the most ‘blue’ tastes of the aozakana clan.

Honesenbei
Honesenbei, literally ‘bone’ ‘cracker’ (cracker as is Ritz cracker, rice cracker) is a popular treat that goes especially well with beer. Bones such as that of the iwashi, when deep-fried are easily chewed and are an excellent source of nutrition. Eel bones are probably the most popular honesenbei in Japan.

Here we just deep-fried them and served them with a bit of salt.

Excellent!

Sabazushi
Sabazushi was discussed in depth in the ‘Hanaore‘ post. Again, I was not present the day before when the sabazushi was prepared. Being a slightly pickled dish, sabazushi is best enjoyed a few days after it is made, giving it a chance to ‘stew’.

Notice the kombu (kelp) on top of the mackerel.

Deepfried Satoimo Crab Ankake
Ankake is a wonderful dish. It is a soupy, dashi-based gravy boiled with lots of starch and then poured over something else. In this case, satoimo. Satoimo is a kind of Japanese potato (taro), that is very, very soft after cooking. Here, after being cooked and steeped in dashi soup stock it is deep-fried. This is very unusual in that the satoimo is rolled in poppy seeds before being deep-fried. Poppy seeds are unusual in Japanese cuisine. The ankake soup is heavily laden with crab meat, another winter favorite in Japan.

Satoimo after being simmered and cut.

Dip the satoimo in egg white, then roll in starch, then poppy seeds, prior to deep-frying.

Deep fry

Crab meat, getting ready with starch mixture on the right.

Pour in

Stir

Ladle over the deep-fried satoimo. Quite an imaginative series of contrasts and layers in this dish!

Seasonal fruit

Persimmon and nashi (asian pear)