Kyoto Foodie: Where and what to eat in Kyoto » shioyaki

Donabe Eda Mame ‘Green Soybean’ Gohan, Matsutake Gohan, Ayu Shioyaki and Tsukudani

Kyoto Foodie — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 06:07:35 +0000

Donabe Takikomi Gohan: Eda Mame ‘Green Soybean’ Gohan, Matsutake Gohan, Grilled Ayu Sweetfish and Homemade Tsukudani

Being requested for more frequent recipes by our readers on KyotoFoodie, last night I made eda mame gohan cooked in a donabe and tried my new experimental tsukudani. While preparing this simple, seasonal and very tasty dish, Tanigawa-san from Kichisen called and told that he had some wild ayu sweetfish and a box of natsu matsutake gohan for me, so come on over and pick it up. Dinner turned out to be quite a feast!

One of my favorite Japanese dishes is eda mame gohan. Eda mame are most commonly served salt boiled and chilled in the summer as an accompaniment to beer. Eda mame are available pre-packaged in the supermarket boiled and frozen, but I prefer the fresh ones, still on the stalk for this dish. They are a little more expensive and preparation takes more time, but the taste is definitely worth it!

This is a dish that is easy to prepare and you ought to be able to get all the ingredients in your country. If you cannot get fresh green soybeans, try adapting the recipe with other varieties of beans or peas. And, of course, tell us what you come up with!

Fresh Eda Mame ‘Green Soybeans’

Boiling Eda Mame

Eda Mame Beans Separated from Pods

Kodai Sea Bream Heads for ‘Kakushi Aji’ Broth

I bought some baby sea bream (kodai) heads for soup stock and broth and added two to the the gohan nabe. To remove any fishy smell, pour boiling water over the fish heads or grill them lightly. I did both.

Kodai Sea Bream Heads Wrapped in Muslin

To prevent bones and scales from getting in the rice, I wrapped the kodai heads in muslin.

Rice and Eda Mame in Gohan Nabe

All Ingredients in Gohan Nabe

Eda Mame Gohan Recipe
Please see our How to Cook Rice in a Donabe article here for lots of details and explanation. Also, we have an article and video on How to Season a Donabe if you have a new one.

Eda Mame Gohan Ingredients
2 1/2 cups rice, 1/2 cup pressed oats (I use a combination of lightly milled brown rice, white rice and oshi-mugi, or pressed oats)
1-2 cups of fresh green beans
1/2 cup cooking sake
2 1/2 cups fresh, clean water
kombu
pinch of salt

Soak rice and pressed oats in warm water for 30-60 minutes.

While soaking the rice, boil the beans in salt water for approximately 5 minutes. The point is to cook them enough that you can easily ‘squeeze’ the beans out of the pod. Be careful not to cook them so long that they become too soft and squish when squeezing them out.

Measure equal parts soaked rice to water and fill donabe. Bring uncovered donabe to a boil. Reduce heat and cover and simmer for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, remove heat and keep covered for an additional 10 minutes. Again, see this article for how to cook rice in a donabe.

I added some grilled baby sea bream heads for a kakushi aji, or ‘hidden’ flavor.

The Feast

Kichisen’s Matsutake Gohan – Wrapped

Kichisen’s Matsutake Gohan – Unwrapped

Fresh Seasonal Ayu Sweetfish

Ayu Shioyaki (Salt Grilled Sweetfish)

Eda Mame Gohan with O-koge

O-kage is the charring of the rice at the bottom of the earthenware pot. This is slightly too charred, the color should not be black or dark brown and the rice should not get hard. Just the right amount of o-koge makes you remember why you spent the little extra time and effort to make rice the old fashioned way, not just push the button of the electric rice cooker!

Eda Mame Gohan Dinner Served

Eda Mame Gohan – Served

Eda Mame Gohan – detail

This is REALLY good!

Kichisen’s Matsutake Gohan – Served

This is ‘summer’ matsutake mushroom (natsu matsutake). The fragrance is sublime!

My Experimental Tsukudani

This is made with ‘water’ eggplant (mizu nasu), a traditional Osaka vegetable used mainly for tsukemono, wagyu beef tendon and egoma sesame leaves (egoma-no-ha). It was pretty good, but not a masterpiece. The eggplant variety wasn’t quite right for tsukudani. Egoma leaves, popular with beef dishes in Korean cuisine, aren’t usually used in Japanese cuisine but I like the astringent ‘mediciney’ taste very much. I will keep working on the recipe.

My Experimental Tsukudani

Ayu Shioyaki and Tade Kuzu Vinegar

Tade (蓼) is a bitter wild herb that is used to flavor vinegar for ayu. Kichisen adds Yoshino kuzu starch to their vinegar to make it very thick. This helps ‘stick’ more flavor on the fish. Eating the entire ayu, head, guts and all is quite bitter, but with ayu this small the flesh cannot really be removed from the bones very easily. The alternative would be deep frying, but these wild ayu are too good to just deep fry!

Ayu Shioyaki and Tade Kuzu Vinegar

Buri kama Shioyaki (Salt Grilled Yellowtail Collar)

Kyoto Foodie — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 10:54:14 +0000

Buri kama Shioyaki (ぶりかま塩焼き)

I killed my first buri-kama of the year tonight. It was a lunker! I grilled it shioyaki style and squeezed on lots of sudachi.

The coming of autumn and winter in Japan means excellent fish, and buri (鰤ぶり), yellowtail, is my all-time favorite. It is still a bit early in the season, but the buri are fattening up!

Buri Kama Shioyaki

I found this pretty huge buri kama, or collar in the neighborhood co-op this afternoon and thought it would have plenty of nutrition and energy to help me fight this bout of bronchitis I have. (だから、no new articles on KyotoFoodie recently.) In addition to the ‘medicinal effect’, I LOVE buri kama shioyaki!!

Buri kama, or collar, is that chunk of fish just back of the gill area. It may not look all that appetizing to a lot of folks, but there is some REALLY good eating fish in here. Plus, kama are usually cheap!

Picking out the sweet meat of the kama is great fun and was just made for beer and sake!

To do this dish, or something like it, you need some large fish collar, salmon will do. Some good salt and a grill or broiler. Then some citrus to squeeze on. If you can get Japanese sudachi or yuzu, you’ve got the real deal! If not, lemon is just fine.

The taste of sudachi can be approximated with about 1 part fresh lime juice and 3 parts fresh lemon juice.

Buri Kama (Yellowtail Collar)

This was a big one, and only cost 250y!

Buri Kama (Yellowtail Collar) – Chiai

Buri has lots of chiai (血合い), the deep red flesh at the bottom is chiai. Chi means blood and ai means meet. So, where blood meets flesh. Buri kama doesn’t actually have that much chiai.

Buri Kama (Yellowtail Collar) – detail

This is the fatty part that makes yellowtail taste so good. Those white lines are fat and oil. Mid-winter fatty yellowtail in Japan is a kind of foie gras from the sea. Raw or cooked, it is hard to beat! It is still early in the season, so it isn’t nearly as fatty as it will be in a few months time.

Buri Kama – On the Grill

A poorly lit shot from in the gas fish broiler. On the skin side grind or sprinkle a lot of salt. The skin is not eaten and easily separates from the flesh, so it can be cooked until black.

Buri Kama Shioyaki Served

On this side salt is sprinkled in moderation or none at all. Oil dripping down from the skin side will bring plenty of salt to this side for flavoring.

Buri Kama Shioyaki Served – detail

Yum! By the way, these sudachi are old, so they are no longer green.

To see a great photo of this dinner finished (defeated) and some about the sake that washed it down, just click here. And some more here.

‘Dessert’: Onigiri

This onigiri is a creation of Miwa (AKA Paku). It has shiso pickled ginger, shiso leaf and katsuo-bushi mixed in the rice. We made the pickled ginger last summer. It is too salty to be healthy but tastes great!

Buri-zanmai: Buri Kama Shioyaki (Salt Grilled Fatty Yellowtail Collar)

Kyoto Foodie — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 10:34:38 +0000

Buri-zanmai Series: Buri Kama Shioyaki (Salt-grilled Fatty Yellowtail Collar)

Buri-zanmai Series (Part 1): Winter is the time for buri, or yellowtail. The meat is laden with oil and rich flavor. Here we make Buri Kama Shioyaki.

Buri Kama Shioyaki:
Kama is the ‘collar’ of a fish, the area between the gill cover and the pectoral fin. This area and the head of the fish is said to have the most succulent meat, but it is difficult to remove. So in Japan, the kama of larger fish is grilled or simmered and the meat is gently teased out with chopsticks.

Preparation:
Preparation is simple. You just need some fish collars and salt.

Rub the buri with course salt and grill or broil. This can be done on a Western style charcoal or gas barbecue. This kama, as it is usually thick needs to cook thoroughly, so avoid too high a flame from the start.

In our Japanese gas range fish grill, this took about 15 minutes to cook. Paku says to start on the skin side of the kama. Don’t worry about burning the skin. The skin is not eaten and it will protect the meat from burning.

As the kama cooks, some of the salt will be lost to oil dripping off the fish. When you turn the fish over, you might want to add more salt to the ‘meat side’. Have a look and use your own judgment.

This is an easy dish to cook and if the kama is large enough, it can probably be eaten easily with a fork and knife as well.

I have heard the salmon collars can sometimes be had for free at a fish market or supermarket in the U.S. Try asking for the collar of any large fish that might be available, salmon, tuna, etc.

Try this dish for a dinner party, it will surely wow everybody!

Salted Kama and Other Parts

On the left is the mouth and on the right is the kama. The curved section is the gill area. The meat of the kama is the bottom side of the fish, the belly. The belly of the tuna is where the best toro is. It’s fatty, just like where bacon comes from on a pig!

Kama Shioyaki

On the left is the kama, skin side down.

Kama Shioyaki and Yuzu

A squeeze of yuzu or lemon goes well with any shioyaki, especially buri. Notice the color of the kama, the golden brown is not teriyaki or some other kind of sauce, but the natural color of well-grilled buri.

Kama Shioyaki – That’s a lot of meat in there!

Actually, there is a lot more meat in the kama than may appear to the eye. These few bits of bone and skin is all that is left.

Have you eaten fish collars? If so, where? How was it cooked? What kind of fish?