"Shime saba" cured Norwegian mackerel しめ鯖

"Saba" 鯖 is one of the "Hikari-mono" 光り物 fish which has a smooth skin with a blue grey sheen  to it. This group of fish can be strong flavored and may spoil quickly. Japanese call it "iki-gusare" 生き腐れ or "starts rotting while it is alive". Therefore, it is most common to have it as "shime-saba" しめ鯖. "Shime-ru" しめる in this context means "cured" or "salted and vinegar-ed"  しめ鯖.  Because of recent advancements in shipping logistics, however, eating "raw" or "lightly cured" local saba is possible and commonly used especially in the southern parts of Japan. In addition to its freshness, depending on the water temperature and/or where it is caught, the fish may  have a parasite called Anisakis (Ironically, the fresher the fish, the higher chance of Anisakis). So it is a bit of a risk eating this fish raw even in Japan.  Cooking and freezing make it safe but "vinegar" apparently doesn't kill Anisakis immediately. Most of the mackerel we get fresh here is Spanish mackerel. "Shime-saba" available in our Japanese grocery store is Norwegian mackerel imported and prepared ("vinegar-ed", packaged and frozen) in Japan and exported to US. So these are quite safe without any chance of Anisakis still surviving, albeit the quality of the fish may not be the best and tends to be "over cured". We (especially I) still like this. I realized that I posted variations on how to prepare shime-saba but never posted Shime-saba simply served with condiments and soy sauce. So, here it is. I served it with grated ginger, finely chopped scallion (which I  soaked in water and then strained and removed the excess moisture). I also made cucumber and wakame seaweed salad with sumiso dressing 胡瓜とわかめの酢味噌和え and salt broth marinated sugar snaps スナップ豌豆の塩びたし.

To prepare a frozen package of shime-saba as sashimi, first thaw it in the refrigerator in the package (I usually leave it overnight), remove it from the package, rinse and blot it with a paper towel and cover it with a sake-soaked paper towel for 5-10 minutes (I do this in the hope of reducing any excess fishiness that may be present). This fish does not have any scales but has a thin semi-tranparent skin which needs to be peeled off starting from the head side's edge. Although not really needed but I added several parallel shallow cuts along the length of the filet and then cut crosswise as seen below.

Soy sauce, grated ginger and scallion all work well with this fish and of course, the only drink that goes with this fish is sake. This was the very first dish of the evening and we enjoyed it.