Valentine‘s day sashimi dinner バレンタインデイ刺身ディナー

As Valentine’s day approached this year, I asked my wife what we should have to celebrate the day. She suggested a Japanese dinner of sashimi, 刺身 chawanmushi 茶碗蒸し, salmon kelp roll 鮭の昆布巻きwith crispy salmon skin and sake (of course). She thought this was a highly appropriate menu since our first dinner/date many, many years ago was on Valentine’s day. On that occasion we went to a Japanese restaurant called “Azuma” in Cupertino. It appears Azuma is still in business at the same spot. 

Our on-line source of sashimi fish has changed during the years; some places went out of business or we found better places. Our most recent source of sashimi is “Yama Seafood” in New York. We recently got frozen sashimi fish from them. They have a few items which are not available elsewhere. One of them is called “Hagashi maguro*” はがしまぐろ or peeled tuna which we have not tried before. I thought this was the perfect tuna portion to make tuna shaped as a rose; appropriate for Valentine’s day. Other sashimi items from our freezer (from different sources) included “ankimo あん肝” monk fish liver, Hotate ホタテscallops and “uni shuto うに酒盗” preserved sea urchin.

*”hagashi 剥がし” is an adjective from the verb hagashu 剥がす ” which means to remove/strip/peel.  So “Hagashi tuna” means “peeled layers of tuna”.  This process was developed since some portions of fatty tuna or “ootoro 大トロ” can be very sinewy, making it unedibly chewy, which we don’t like. Although the sinew can be made more tolerable by making multiple shallow-cuts across the plane of the sinew the ultimate remedy is to remove the sinew by slicing along the white sinew lines and gently separating out the meat layer by layer.  The result is an exceptionally smooth, soft, and melt-in-your-mouth textured tuna meat without any sinew; hence “Hagashi Maguro” or peeled tuna.

In the picture, the center is the tuna rose. The “hagashi” comes in rather thin layers characteristic of the layers between the sinew which are perfect for making a rose. This is done by cutting the layer lengthwise to the height of the rose, then slicing the layer perpendicularly into pieces about one inch long then laying the pieces with the edges overlapping slightly and rolled up to make a rose. I surrounded the rose with sliced cucumber and drizzled “sumiso 酢味噌” over it all. The upper center is three medallions of ankimo, Ten and 4 o’clock positions are scallops which I sliced horizontally in three layers (we like thin layers of scallops as sashimi) placed on a slice of lemon (Meyer lemon). In the 7 o’clock position, is “uni shuto うに酒盗” on a cucumber boat. I added yuzu kosho and wasabi on the bottom.

I served this sashimi platter with three sauces. One was mango chutney soy sauce specifically for the ankimo. The other two were ponzu and sashimi soy sauce.

The hagashi was not as fatty as I expected but was still quite good; much better than if it still had the sinew. The ankimo went very well with the mango chutney sauce but also went well with the ponzu sauce. The scallops were good with either wasabi or yuzu kosho. This was a very satisfying and filling sashimi plate.  (This sashimi plate was a bit better than the one we had in Azuma if I remember correctly.)