Hanami 2020 #3 with Uni and tuna from Catalina ３日目の花見、カタリナの刺身

After we had our first hanami celebration meal of Tako Grill take out, we received some shashimi items from Catalina Offshore products. It is rare now-a-days that they have gold uni from California but they had it and I ordered it with Pacific bluefin tuna loin, salmon and "ankimo" Monkfish liver. The fish arrived Saturday and we had our second hanami of tuna sashimi and a half of uni that evening. The other items contributed to the third continuation of hanami. I prepared half of the uni as "shio-uni" 塩うに or salted uni. The uni arrived in this plastic container which works much better than traditional wood tray.

The uni was nicely formed (not fragmented or dissolved). It was a nice orange color. Its been a while since we had uni from Catalina. We have been getting some uni from Maruhide but this one was pretty good.

I enjoyed half as sashimi and prepared the other half as "Shio uni" or salted uni. I read that this was a very usual preparation in Aomori prefecture 青森県 which is the norther most part of the main land Japan, "Honshu"本州. Most of the recipes (all in Japanese) call for 100 grams of uni and 12 grams of salt. Place the uni slightly apart in a flat sealable container lined with a paper towel, and sprinkle with the salt (see below). I put on the lid and placed it in the refrigerator for three hours. After three hours, moisture came out and was absorbed by the paper towel. Since we were going to consume the uni the next day, I just move the uni to a smaller sealable container. If you use a sterilized container (a glass jar sterilized  in boiling water, cooled and dried), the uni should last at least 1 week in the refrigerator).

In any case, I forgot to take a picture when we had this the next day. To serve it I made a bottom layer of thinly sliced mini cucumber on a plate and put the salted uni on the top. We folded the cucumber and uni into single serving seasoned nori sheets 味付け海苔 and enjoyed the combination of flavors. The uni became bit more creamy with more intense flavor. Definitely I will use this technique to preserve and enhance the flavor of uni in the future.

In any case, we had the remaining tuna two ways; one is tuna cubes with avocado 鮪とアボカドの角切り(seasoned with finely chopped garlic, sesame oil and soy sauce).

Another was just straightforward tuna sashimi with blanched broccoli with sesame dressing ブロッコリーの胡麻和え, salt broth snap peas スナップ豌豆の塩びたし, Japanese omelet 出汁巻 and "asazuke" 浅漬け of cucumber and daikon.

In any case, we had a very good 3rd hanami.

Uni Miso Ika Zuke 雲丹みそいか漬

This blog is to highlight another item called "Uni Miso Ika Zuke"雲丹みそいか漬 that we got from Maruhide (shown in the little round dish on the right). We got it just before New Year with some other items including fresh uni. We finished all the other items sometime ago. I rediscovered this one "hiding" in the freezer and decided that unlike wine, frozen fish generally doesn't improve over time so it was time to open the jar and taste the contents. We had it as a starter with cold sake one weekend evening.

"Uni miso ika zuke" is similar but different from squid "Shiokara" 塩辛 or "Shutou" 酒盗.  The "sauce" is concentrated uni sea urchin. The below is the description from the Maruhide web site.

"Maruhide's "Uni Miso" is Sea Urchin paste made with California Red Sea Urchin. Steamed at low temperature to condense to 1/2 of its weight, to make it rich and flavorful. The combination of "Uni Miso" with Sashimi grade Mongo-Squid ("Ika Zuke") makes the perfect complement for sake."

We wholeheartedly agree with the statement. It has a concentrated uni flavor but not too salty and the squid has a nice "sashimi"-like texture. This is indeed perfect to go with sipping cold sake.

I added few other items from my usual stash. From left back clockwise; chicken tsukune square つくね (instead of making into into a ball or sausage shape of tsukune, I put it in a baking pan and baked in the toaster oven at 350F for 30 minutes like the  other chicken squares I make. Since I had fresh garlic chives, I added them), blanched rapini dressed in mustard-soy sauce 菜の花の辛子醤油, blanched sugar snap marinated in seasoned dashi スナップ豌豆の塩びたし, simmered "Kabocha" pumpkin かぼちゃの煮物, Dashi-maki Japanese omelet with garlic chive だし巻き and spicy baked tofu ピリ辛とうふ.

We had this while sitting outside on our deck on one of the first warm days of spring which made it taste even better. Now we have two house sakes; "MU"daiginjo 大吟醸　”無” and "天狗舞”. Both are quite good with a bit more complexity in "tengumai".

New Year's feasting , evening of day 3 正月３日目の夕

On day 3 of the New Year, we are still enjoying the osechi box. Here I show a few of the highlights or our favorites.

This is "ankimo tofu" あん肝豆腐 or "monk fish liver terrine". It has smooth creamy texture bursting with ankimo flavor.

This is new item this year; "Ebo-dai koji-zuke" えぼ鯛麹漬.  "Kabura" white radish and white fish meat (butter fish) marinated in koji 麹 (malted rice). This dish evokes a childhood memory for me of "ii-zushi or izushi" 飯寿司 of Hokkaido where I grew up. It is a dish similar in which koji-rice, vegetable and fish (in Hokkaido, herring, anchovies, and salmon were popular) fermented together. It appears that this is a type of izushi that is a New Year's dish in the Kanazawa 金沢 area called "kabura-zushi" かぶら寿司. In any case, it has a nice gentle sweetness from the koji. The subtle sourness and crunchy vegetable in contrast with the savory and soft fish meat are a great combination.

This is the last of steamed sea urchin. Although fresh raw sea urchin is the best, this is really good in its own right. It was steamed on a sheet of cedar which renders a subtle flavor/smell. Come to think of it, this is a good way to preserve the sea urchin so that it will last through New Year's cerebration.

On the left is miso-marinated (and dehydrated) egg yolk with walnuts. All of these items are perfect with cold sake. We can really get used to this.

Nagaimo and daikon yukari-ae 長芋と大根のゆかり和え

These are small dishes we started the evening meal. Among the five items I served, only one is new which is in the blue bowl on the upper left. Upper center is squid stuffed with caramelized onion イカの飴色玉ねぎ詰 and tentacles, upper right is chicken liver simmered in red wine 鶏レバーの赤ワイン煮, lower left is sugar snaps soaked in dashi broth スナップ豌豆の塩びたし, and one in the small yellow container looking like a citrus fruit is uni or sea urchin "shuto" from Maruhide 丸秀のウニの酒盗.

This is a new item made from nagaimo and daikon. It is rather interesting and we like it.

As we mentioned before, when this squid dish is cold, I can slice it without separating the stuffing and the squid body. As you can see on the cut surface, quite few squid legs are stuffed. I drizzled our favorite spicy Spanish olive oil.

The below is another "teiban" 定番 in our household, red wine simmered chicken liver. This time I garnished with fresh thin slivers of ginger or "Hari-shouga" 針生姜.

Sugar snaps are good just blanched but this one was soaked in lightly seasoned Japanese broth. When you bite down, instead of water, you can get the subtle taste of the broth which makes an already good veggie nicer.

This is one of the five different kinds of sea urchin or uni "shuto" from Maruhide. When we got fresh uni last time, we also got these "shuto". Although frozen, they won't improve with age, so we have been hitting them regularly. This on is with hot chili and indeed the spiciness creeps up on you afterwards. This is almost as good as fresh uni.

For "Nagaimo no yukari-ae" 長芋のゆかり和えfrom E-recipe. I changed the amount of Yukari thinking the original recipe will make this dish rather salty.

Ingredients (for 2 servings, for the amount shown probably make 4 servings):
1 inch long daikon, peeled, sliced thinly and cut into thin julienne.
1 inch nagaimo, peeled, sliced thinly and cut into thin julienne.
1/2 tsp Yukari salt
1 and 1/2 tbs  sweet vinegar (300ml rice vinegar, 120-150 gram sugar and 5-10 gram salt)

Directions:
Put both the daikon and nagaimo in boiling water. When it comes back to a boil, drain and let it cool in a colander.
Dress with Yukari salt and sweet vinegar.

This is a nice dish. My wife thought everything was nagaimo but this is a mixture of daikon and nagaimo which give an interesting texture difference. Yukari (dried red perilla) salt and sweet vinegar combination is very good giving nice refreshing taste. This is another way to use nagaimo and more interesting than sushi vinegar and aonori combination. In any case, we had cold sake with these starters.

Sea Urchin from Maruhide with squid sashimi 丸秀の雲丹とイカの刺身

Between Christmas and New Year, we got "uni" sea urchin from Maruhide 丸秀 in Los Angeles, again. We think this is the best place to get quality uni in the U.S. They sell two kinds of uni; one is conventional (treated with potassium alum or myouban 明礬) to maintain the shape and firmness, the other is soaked in 3% salt water (salinity of sea water). The vast majority of uni available, which comes in a tray, is myouban-treated. Done properly, you do not tase the myoban but sometimes, they use an excessive amount and the uni can taste bitter. We got both versions from Maruhide and both are excellent. The one packed in salt water may not last as long as alum-treated one and starts to lose its shape quickly.

I served the myouban-treated uni on the top of perilla leaves and squid sashimi. This is emulating our favorite way to eat uni at Tako Grill (see below).

Since we did not have appropriate squid sashimi, I used a package of precut frozen squid sashimi from the Japanese grocery store.

This uni was alum treated but we did not taste any bitterness and the combination of perilla, squid and uni is indeed our favorite way to eat uni.

Uni "ruibe" うに酒盗ルイベ

We got this with fresh "uni" sea urchin and other uni products from Maruhide 丸秀 sometime ago. Finally we got around to tasting it. This is called "Uni-shutou-ruibe" うに酒盗ルイベ.  I sliced it thinly while it was still frozen and served it with slices of cucumber and cold sake.

I'm quoting from my previous post: "Ruibe" is a word derived from the Ainu アイヌ, the endogenous people of my home island Hokkaido. Roughly translated, it means "thawing food". In the severe cold of Hokkaido, salmon harvested in early winter quickly froze. In its frozen state, it was sliced thinly and served semi-frozen or over hot rice where it thawed--hence thawing food.

"Shuto" 酒盗:  These two letters literally mean "sake" and "stealing". The origin of this name reportedly came from the allegation that shuto is so good with sake that when people run out of sake while eating it, they are compelled to obtain more sake even if they have to steal it. There is a similar preparation called  "shio-kara" 塩辛 or, as my wife calls it, "squid and guts". It is made of strips of raw squid salted and fermented with squid guts (mostly liver) which we really like and is also perfect with sake. Shuto appears to have originated and become popular in Kochi 高知 prefecture on Shikoku island 四国. This island is famous for "Katsuo" 鰹 or bonito fishing. Instead of discarding the innards (stomach and intestine), they cut them up, salt, and ferment for 1 year or more. According to what I read,  the digestive enzymes present in the innards ferment and preserve the fish guts. Many variations incorporating different flavorings and using bonito flesh instead of innards as well as other fish exist but I have not tried them. "Uni shuto" appears not to contain fish innards.

We really like this. It is a cross between fresh uni and uni product called "Neri-uni*" 練りウニ. The uni flavors get concentrated. What we really noticed was the texture transition that occurred after we placed it in our mouth.  It went from cold and frozen with little flavor to melt in your mouth flooding with fresh uni flavors.  We really enjoyed this on slices of cucumber followed by a mouthful of cold sake but it will definitely go well with fresh white rice. "Uni-shutou-Ruibe" is not a traditional Japanese product and according to "Maruhide", this is exclusively available at "Maruhide" in Los Angeles.

*Neri-Uni: This is a more traditional preserved "uni" product. The uni is mixed with salt and alcohol. The resulting paste is packaged in a small glass jar.

Saltwater packed uni and uni shutou from Maruhide 丸秀の海水生うにとウニの酒盗

We recently found a new place called "Maruhide" 丸秀 to get good fresh California uni. After Christmas, we decided to order their sampler of uni for the New Year. This included fresh uni packed in saltwater, a metal tray of fresh uni, 5 different kinds of uni shuto** ウニ酒盗, and frozen uni shuto "ruibe*" 雲丹酒盗－ルイベ.

*"Ruibe" is a word derived from the Ainu アイヌ, the endogenous people of my home island Hokkaido. Roughly translated, it means "thawing food".  In the severe cold of Hokkaido, salmon harvested in early winter quickly froze. In its frozen state, it was sliced thinly and served semi-frozen or over hot rice where it thawed--hence thawing food.

The picture below shows the fresh uni packed in saltwater. It was not treated with any preservative. The only problem was that I could not bust into it no matter how hard I tried. My wife came to the rescue. Wielding a sharp knife, she cut around the lid to open it. After all these "pyrotechnics", we discovered there was a little tab that released the lid very easily--next time we'll know better.

With all the excitement of opening the container, I forgot to take pictures. We divided the contents into two generous servings and enjoyed it with wasabi and soy sauce. I must say this was the one of the best uni we have ever tasted.

**"Shuto" 酒盗:  These two letters literally mean "sake" and "stealing". The origin of this name reportedly came from the allegation that shuto is so good with sake that when people run out of sake while eating it, they are compelled to obtain more sake even if they have to steal it. There is a similar preparation called  "shio-kara" 塩辛 or, as my wife calls it, "squid and guts". It is made of strips of raw squid salted and fermented with squid guts (mostly liver) which we really like and is also perfect with sake. Shuto appears to have originated and become popular in Kochi 高知 prefecture on Shikoku island 四国. This island is famous for "Katsuo" 鰹 or bonito fishing. Instead of discarding the innards (stomach and intestine), they cut them up, salt, and ferment for 1 year or more. According to what I read,  the digestive enzymes present in the innards ferment and preserve the fish guts. Many variations incorporating different flavorings and using bonito flesh instead of innards as well as other fish exist but I have not tried them. "Uni shuto" appears not to contain fish innards.

Here are the five different kinds of "Uni Shuto" in small jars that we received in our shipment. They were originally frozen but as we received them on ice packs, they were semi-thawed. It appears that they could have been immediately frozen again and would have lasted a few more months in the freezer. I only put the "Ruibe" in the freezer and tried all five shuto at once. As per the instructions that came with the products, after they are thawed, we should finish them as soon as possible (whatever that means). We had these during the next 5 days and they were OK. I decided to use the small serving containers we acquired at Nishiki Market in Kyoto 京都錦市場 which were the perfect size for this. I served the raw uni from the metal tray in the last container for comparison.

To our surprise, the uni in the jar are almost whole. They were not too salty at all. The five flavors are shown below.

The picture below shows what the uni shuto looks like.

Although, the raw uni is the ultimate standard, these shuto are very good. We liked "olive oil"and then "original" the best. "With chili" was not too spicy and was also really good. "Chili and Yuzu" is flavored with "Yuzu-kosho" 柚子胡椒 and its flavor was a bit too strong for the delicate uni. "With squid" was good but my wife felt that the "squid" was taking up too much space from the uni. Nevertheless, this is a great find. According to "Maruhide", these are original products only available from Maruhide, Long Beach, CA. So this is a unique "American" product. Definitely, great with sake and I have to report that while eating this, my wife was indeed caught stealing some of my sake when she ran out.  We have to wait to taste "Uni Ruibe" at a later time.

Sea Urchin from Maruhide 丸秀の特選生うに

We are always looking out for new sources of sashimi items. Although Catalina Offshore products have been our go-to place, in recent years, quality tuna マグロ and sea urchins うに have been hard to come by. For uni sea urchin, we found an excellent alternative. It is a company called "Maruhide" 丸秀 from Long Beach. Uni is harvested off Santa Barbara. By far, the quality and careful preparation and packaging are the best. It tends to be a bit expensive but not overly so. It comes in a metal box with a transparent plastic front. The uni is sandwiched between the bottom sponge sheet and the top special absorbent pad (see below) so it doesn't slide around in the box getting turned to mush during shipment. This is 3.52oz or about 100 grams.

Upon opening, it is nicely shaped with the bright yellow color of California Uni.

As soon as we received it, we had to taste it. So, we had a small amount around lunch time. It was indeed sublime. Creamy but not too soft or liquefied. Although it is treated with alum or myoban ミョウバンas per the back label, we did not detect a chemical or bitter taste, which sometimes happened especially with U.S. prepared uni. Actually, the company also sells uni soaked in salt water that doesn't use myoban, This product is called "uni in salt water" 生うに海水パック or Shiomizu-uni 塩水うに which we would like to try next.

In the evening, we had more uni as sashimi. Since we did not have any other sashimi items, we had uni with avocado slices and skinned and sliced Campari tomato.  As a "shime" ending dish for the evening, I made a small donburi with golden egg threads, nori, and cucumber over vinegared rice.

The next day, we finished up two trays of uni with another simpler version of uni donburi. I also made a sort of salad with cucumber, tomato, broccoli, wakame sea weed and shrimp dressed in kimisu 黄身酢.

This version of donburi made with only nori worked better since we could really enjoy the uni.

This is by far the best uni we can have had either in restaurants or at home.

This time I got the uni with kazunoko 数の子 from JAL Shopping but we learned that we can also get uni directly from Maruhide.

Digression addendum:
We recently had a snow storm (the first measurable accumulation of the year). The temperatures were very low with highs in the low 20's. This was the scene at the feeder in our backyard. Depending on how you count them there are over 20 birds lined up to get on the feeder. Most of them were cardinals.

We often supplement the feeder by distributing peanuts. Everybody loves peanuts--birds, squirrels and we have even observed foxes eating the peanuts we put out).  The cardinals beg for peanuts when they see us at the window. On this day, a female cardinal came and pecked at the window next to which we were sitting. In response, we got up to put out the peanuts shown below--who is better trained the cardinal or us?

This male cardinal is posing for his close-up.

Salmon sashimi 鮭の刺身

This was the last serving of sashimi fish (tuna, salmon and uni) we got from Catalina. I served all that was left. We have enjoyed the contents of this shipment for lunches and evening repasts for the past 3 days.

Besides Sashimi, I also served cucumber cups with moromi-miso もろみ味噌 and soy sauce marinated salmon roe いくらの醤油漬け.

I served two kinds of salmon sashimi. The rolled up one is kelp-cured and the flat one is straight salmon sashimi. 

Because the tuna had a bit of unpleasant sinew and only a small piece was left, I made "tuna nuta" マグロのぬた. I cut the tuna into small cubes and served it with wakame seaweed 若芽 and thinly sliced rings of red onion and dressed it in nuta or sumiso 酢味噌 sauce

Although we enjoyed the sashimi fish we got this time from Catalina, the tuna was a bit disappointing because of the unpleasant sinew in the meat. The Northwestern uni was just OK; with its gamey flavor and soft texture it was nothing comparable to California Gold Uni we used to get. The highlight was the salmon. 

Ahi tuna from Catalina カタリナオフショアからのアヒマグロ刺身

We tried "Fresh Wild sushi-grade Ahi tuna" from Catalina. According to them "Ahi" tuna could be Bigeye (Mebachi メバチマグロ) or Yellowfin (Kihada キハダマグロ).  Quoting from the Website "Ahi sushi is one of the most popular items among sushi fans. In the Hawaiian language, “Ahi” (ah-hee) refers to two species of tuna: bigeye and yellowfin." The one we got appears to have been "Bigeye" which is good since we like bigeye much better than yellowfin as sashimi. We also got fresh salmon and one tray of Pacific Northwest "Uni" or sea urchin roe. Obtaining decent uni from Catalina (or anywhere else) is more and more difficult and this was the first time we tried Pacific Northwest uni.

The tuna was about one pound. I first removed the skin. The white line separating the meat (sinew or fascia) is visible in the picture.

I made the piece into "Saku" blocks. You can see the sinew separating the meat especially on the right two larger blocks.

The first dish I made was  "tuna and avocado cubes" dressed in a mixture of dark sesame oil, soy sauce, sake and garlic ( I posted this before).

Since I did not have chives, I used chopped scallion instead for garnish.

Since the tuna was cut into small cubes, this tasted good without much problems with the sinew.  But when I served it with the salmon and uni as sashimi, the sinew became very unpleasant. Usually, more noticeable sinew or "Suji  すじ is present in Ootro or a very fatty potion tuna but this red meat or "akami " 赤身 had lots of "suji".

The salmon* was very nice and was the best among the three sashimi items we bought. The uni was certainly acceptable but the consistency is a bit too soft or liquid. It also had a gamey taste akin to but even greater than Maine uni. It is far cry from the nice firm but creamy California Gold uni we used to get.

* Digression alert: Salmon sashimi or sushi did not exist while I was in Japan. The reason Japanese did not eat raw salmon was because of the parasite called Anisakis which produced acute GI problems if ingested. It is killed after the salmon has been frozen (-4F for at least 24 hours) but marinating with vinegar does not get rid of it. About 1995, Norwegian purveyors convinced Japanese customers that their salmon was safe to eat raw since anisakis are not present in their farm raised salmon. Pacific Northwestern salmon has anisakis (I am not going into the life cycles of anisakis but where seals and other sea mammals are present, anisakis infestation is a problem.) The one we got was from New Zealand. As per Catalina website "Mt. Cook Alpine salmon is pure king salmon. It is naturally free of parasites, GMO, antibiotics, chemicals, mercury and other heavy metals due to being sustainably farmed in the pure glacial waters of New Zealand’s Southern Alps. " The salmon as sashimi is not our usual choice but, among the three we got, I prefer the salmon (meaning the tuna and uni weren't that good).