Pacific saury "Kabayaki" rice bowl さんまの蒲焼き丼

"Kabayaki" 蒲焼き is a very common Japanese way of grilling fish filets. "Eel Kabayaki" 鰻の蒲焼き is the best known example but many other kinds of fish can be prepared in the same way. The sauce is essentially a mixture of soy sauce, mirin, sugar, and sake but many eel-specialized restaurants may have their secret, and sacred recipes inherited from many generations before. Like an American barbecue sauce, towards the end of grilling, the Kabayaki sauce is applied repeatedly to make a crust of savory thickened sauce on the surface of the fish.

It is now pacific saury or "sanma" season in Japan. At Tako Grill, we just had our share of sanma sashimi and grilled sanma. I previously posted several ways of preparing sanma. I also happened to find a vacuum packed sanma kabayaki I bought few weeks ago in the refrigerator. One evening, I made this into a very simple "kabayaki" doburi or rice bowl. I just warmed up the sanma kabaayaki in the package by submerging it in boiling water for few minutes and put the warmed fish over the rice. I could have made more sauce but I did not. I also happened to have made "daikon namasu" which I garnished with salmon roe or "ikura".

If you make your own from fresh sanma, this could have been better. This pre-made kabayaki was a bit on a sweet and dry side but it was, nevertheless, a nice finish of the evening.