A Sushi Mission: From a Choppy Sea to a Perfect Dinner
Hey, good morning, guys. I’m Daiki , and my mission started early—at about 5:30 in the morning. The goal for today is to prepare fish for a sushi dinner tonight. After a quick stop at Family Mart to get some coffee, it was time to head out.
The Gear and the Plan
Today, I’m mainly going to use a 60 g jig. It looks pretty good ; it’s beautiful. Maybe the fish might like it. I have two different colors: red gold and blue pink.
My setup is all set:
- Jig: A blue pink 60 g blade jig.
- Reel: Shimano Stratic 5000XG
- Rod: Grappler light jigging rod.
- Line: 30 lb test line.
With this setup, I’m mainly targeting Spanish mackerel.
A Change of Plans
It’s pretty cold, actually. When I got out on the water, it turned out to be really choppy offshore. I couldn’t go to the spot which I planned ; it was just too choppy to fish. So, I had to go look for some spots behind wind. I found a place that looks much better , and it looks like we have enough bait around 50 m. Let’s give it a shot.
The Fight!
As soon as I hooked a fish, I realized it’s not Spanish mackerel. It’s way heavier than that. After a great fight, I got it on board. It’s about a 30… yellow tail. That’s a decent size in this season. It’s a good start.
The rough conditions were a bit scary for a small boat. By the way, I operate fishing charters for tourists, and I definitely would have canceled the trip under such rough conditions if I had our guests. (The link is in the description if you’re interested! )
Right after that, I caught another one.
To be honest, what I really wanted was Spanish mackerel because they are really good in taste. But they don’t tag like this. Even though they are good sprinters, they are not that powerful. Yellow tail are really good fighters and so much fun to fight with. I landed another one, about the same size as the one I just caught.
Preserving the Catch for Sushi
What I got today are two yellow tail. Now, I have to process them correctly. We usually cut gills and tails to bleed them. This bleeding process is really important to maintain the freshness of fish. Otherwise, it goes bad really fast. Another important thing is to cool them down immediately right after you bleed them , hopefully in a salt ice.
Back Home: Prepping the Fish
Hey, so I’m back home. Let’s break them down.
I also have this rockfish. It’s small, but it tastes really good. I’ll have fillets for sushi and the head for miso soup. After breaking it down, I’m left with beautiful boneless fillets for making sushi (I took out the rib cage and pin bones).
I also have a tile fish I caught the other day. If you’ve never tried this fish before, you really should because this is really good. It’s called tile fish. In the States, you have golden tile fish ; this is white tile fish. It’s got beautiful white meat, and it’s so flaky. It’s like a fat king salmon kind of texture and is really rich in flavor, too.
Making the Sushi Dinner
1. The “Zuke” Marinade Now I’m working on making a special soy sauce used to marinate the fish for sushi. If you’re a big fan of sushi, you might have heard of zuk. I’m making nikiri joyu for zuk. This is a Sweden soy sauce for marinade , made of soy sauce, marin and kelp. After heating, I cool it down on ice.
Now I prepare for “tuk” (zuke). I slice it into sashimi and dip it in the special soy sauce. After an hour, the zuk is ready to be sushi.
2. The Sushi Rice Next, sushi rice. I add some vinegar and sugar while it’s warm so that the rice can easily absorb the flavor. Then, I put it in the fridge to cool it down.
3. Assembly and Tasting First is the rockfish. I had only six pieces out of the whole fish, but it tastes really good and sweet.
Next is amadada, the tile fish. This one’s really oily. It really sticks to the knife when I’m slicing it.
Now I want to add a little bit of arrangement on the sushi with salt and lemon. You know, this is the good part of making sushi at home—that you can add your own arrangement as you like. If you torch it, the sweetness of fish really comes up. I add some lemon on it and try it. Very good.
Here’s another arrangement with mayo. Mayo sushi. It smells good. The taste? It’s okay.
Okay, so I’m going to enjoy these with my family. Thank you for watching. See you next time.