![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Under Hagi-san's guidance, I bought whole fish to cut up myself (well, I bought three whole fish, because they come in 3-packs unless you want to pick and bag them yourself and that's one challenge I just wasn't up for). She's a 50 year old lunch lady, how could she be wrong about anything?
I was pretty nervous about it and the first time I went I chickened out and got pre-cut fish. Still, that was a good experience because I'd never ever made my own fish before but it was absolutely delicious and it made me realize I should make fish every week until the end of my time in Japan.
Finally though I went to the store and bought some whole sanma (pacific saury), the autumn fish of choice. It sat in my fridge for a little while but yesterday I finally whipped it out. Hagi-san told me to cut off the heads, cut out the spine, flick out the insides with the knife, rub it down with oil and salt, and let it sit for 24 hours. It was almost as easy as she said, except the cutting part. I mangled the meat a little trying to get the bones out and I think from now on just I'm going to let the grocery store clean my fish for me. Maybe a sharper knife would fix my problem, but it's not really more expensive to buy them pre-cut and my garbage will smell better without the lingering fish parts.
Though it was weird today looking at the pile of meat in my bentou and remembering how each of the three fish looked a little different. They had faces. Hm.
Still, I'm not squeemish and it was an interesting experience I'm glad I had the guts to try. Though honestly, I thought I'd have a bit of an edge because I used to go fishing with my dad as a kid - and in this process I learned a valuable lesson: just because you used to watch your dad clean the fish afterward doesn't mean you're any good at it...though admittedly I'd be much better at it if I'd actually watched instead of always commandeering the severed heads to squeeze the sides of their mouths to make them sing opera.
I was pretty nervous about it and the first time I went I chickened out and got pre-cut fish. Still, that was a good experience because I'd never ever made my own fish before but it was absolutely delicious and it made me realize I should make fish every week until the end of my time in Japan.
Finally though I went to the store and bought some whole sanma (pacific saury), the autumn fish of choice. It sat in my fridge for a little while but yesterday I finally whipped it out. Hagi-san told me to cut off the heads, cut out the spine, flick out the insides with the knife, rub it down with oil and salt, and let it sit for 24 hours. It was almost as easy as she said, except the cutting part. I mangled the meat a little trying to get the bones out and I think from now on just I'm going to let the grocery store clean my fish for me. Maybe a sharper knife would fix my problem, but it's not really more expensive to buy them pre-cut and my garbage will smell better without the lingering fish parts.
Though it was weird today looking at the pile of meat in my bentou and remembering how each of the three fish looked a little different. They had faces. Hm.
Still, I'm not squeemish and it was an interesting experience I'm glad I had the guts to try. Though honestly, I thought I'd have a bit of an edge because I used to go fishing with my dad as a kid - and in this process I learned a valuable lesson: just because you used to watch your dad clean the fish afterward doesn't mean you're any good at it...though admittedly I'd be much better at it if I'd actually watched instead of always commandeering the severed heads to squeeze the sides of their mouths to make them sing opera.
Tags: