Just a Reminder:
Sushi mackerel and shiso leaves?
Is perhaps one of the best flavor combinations ever to be existing.
Now, sushi mackerel (called saba at sushi restaurants) is always pickled or cured in some fashion because it is dangerous to eat fresh – within 48 hours of death, the mackerel develops a bizarre form of food poisoning called “Scombroid food poisoning”. Unlike most food poisoning, the culprit is not bacteria or parasites, but a simple chemical process brought about by exposure to oxygen. Basically, the fish becomes saturated with histamines, which in turn causes a severe allergic reaction in whatever consumes it. What kind of allergic reaction? Well, all of them. The poor schmuck that ate it gets flushed, itchy, nauseated, headachy, stuffy, the works — pretty much every reaction you’ve ever had to ragweed or a cat or wool or whatever, but all together at once. Weird, right?
Don’t worry. Fishermen know this and know that their jobs are fucked if they try and sell old fish, so mackerel fishermen take their catch directly to a curing plant that usually has the buggers either frozen or salted and/or otherwise cured within 24 hours. But it also means that you shouldn’t buy fresh mackerel unless you’re walking your butt straight home and then cooking it before you even take your jacket off.
That’s okay with me, because I love that sushi mackerel is essentially pickled. It’s oily, vinegary (the cheap stuff is really vinegary, which I don’t mind, honestly) and salty but clean at the same time, like if sardines weren’t fishy-tasting.
And that brings us to shiso, the mint-family herb also known as perilla, Beefsteak and Japanese basil. The flavor is quite a challenge to describe, but putting it somewhere between mint and basil is a safe start. Instead of the skunky pepperiness of basil, though, it has a high, reedy topnote of flavor, a sweetness that is both floral and spicy. To be perfectly frank, I think it’s fucking amazing.
Paired with anything at all oily or rich, it’s an epiphany. Which brings us back to mackerel.
Oh, mackerel and shiso. I think you’re on the shortlist for my deathbed food.
November 7th, 2009 | Food Rant, Obsessed
weird, one of my cravings this past month has been “one order salmon nigiri and one of mackeral please” and off I go to devour it at home. Oily tart mackeral, goood.
So, do you just eat a piece of leaf with a piece of fish, or what? Do you peel the skin off, or chomp down to it like a slice of watermelon? Ahm un Amerruhkin, these things confuse me.
Oh! Well lemme tell ya: You just gobble it up, just like that, with a piece of shiso and the fish all whole like that.
The skin is scale-free and just as soft as the meat itself is. It has no distinguishably different flavor or texture, and shines beautifully in the light. In fact, I’m not even sure you can peel it off – it’s not like normal fish skin.
I think the mackerel freaks a lot of people out because it is whole-looking like that, even though it is one of the uncommon “cooked” pieces of fish.
God I love mackerel, and give thanks that I live where I do, when you can get out in a small boat, sick a line in and dammit if Bob’s not your uncle, there’s a silvery thing of goodness on the end of it…
Pingback: Anger Burger » Blog Archive » I ♥ Maangchi!