Saturday, September 24, 2016

Big eye tuna toro and Ankimo メバチマグロとあん肝の刺身

We got spot prawn from Catalina offshore products. At the same time, we also got frozen bigeye tuna chutoro メバチマグロの中とろ and ankimo あん肝. This was the first time we tried frozen bigeye tuna from Catalina. Interestingly, this turned out to be a cross between ootoro and chutoro. Some portions had sinew separating the meat like some portions of ootoro and with a thin, a bit rough, layer of pure fat (must be from just under the skin). But it tasted really good.


We also got ankimo あん肝 or monkfish liver which was made  into a cylinder, steamed and frozen. This pack appeared to be a bit softer than usual but tasted good.


For this occasion, I thawed a tube of real wasabi and used it with the dish.


For a change, I used a Western-style plate and also served avocado slices as a part of the sashimi. For this sashimi combination, I made three separate sauces. From top Karashi sumiso 芥子酢味噌, mixture of soy sauce and mango chutney (about 1:2 ratio) マンゴーチャツネ醤油, and straight soy sauce.


Karashi sumiso 芥子酢味噌: My usual, mixture of miso, Japanese mustard (from a tube), sugar and rice vinegar. I added a small amount of mirin this time to adjust the consistency (or dashi broth, if you have it handy). This was meant to be used for the tuna in combination with the soy sauce.

Mango chutney soy sauce マンゴーチャツネ醤油: This is a variation of orange marmalade soy sauce I usually make for ankimo.  Since I had mango chutney, I used that to make a similar flavor profile of sweet and salty sauce for the ankimo. It worked very well. My wife actually thought this was better then the sauce I make with marmalade.

Of course, for the slices of avocado, wasabi and soy sauce are the best combination. This was a nice small sashimi plate for a weekend evening with our house sake "mu". The big eye tuna sashimi was way better than our back-up yellowfin tuna sashimi.


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