Today’s Tiffin

Tarka daal; Sindhi-style lady’s fingers; basmati rice.

Finished off the sole

by making goujons with my infamous wasabi mashed potatoes.

The goujons came out just as they should be; light, fluffy and with the breadcrumbs forming a perfect seal on its contents so that the fish within steams, at very high temperature, in its own juices rather than getting fried in the hot oil.  The white fish comes out wonderfully flakey and moist, and hardly greasy at all.  My only regret was not having a nice tartare sauce to complement them; ketchup made an admirable substitute.

マコガレイの刺身

　無理にきれいな盛り付けや飾りより、材料にこだわりがある。いい刺身に本ワサビとちょっといい醤油。

　エンガワ。くせがまったくなくヒラメやイシガレイのよりずっとうまい。

　刺身＋エンガワ。甘みがあって脂のっていました。外海（太平洋）のマコよりやっぱり湾内のやつがうまい。

Big Catch

Pleuronectes yokohamae, Marbled Sole, マコガレイ.

Thanks as always to Fukagawa Fujimi.

Perfect Parathas

Punjabi parathas: you don’t need a tava, they come out just as good with a cast-iron frying pan.

New Fishing Knife

Curiously enough, during my last fishing trip I couldn’t find my knife in my tackle bag. Luckily it was not an emergency and a good pair of scissors did the job instead. At the time I thought I had just left it at home, although it felt strange because I have never once forgotten any part of my tackle when going fishing (money, packed lunch, water, glasses &c. are another matter though) and after his rod and reel, an angler’s knife is one of the most important items in his bag. Anyway, when I got home I couldn’t find it, so it turns out I may have left it on board my last fishing trip (Jan 25th) on Sagami Bay, and presumably the customer the next day would have snaffled it; the skipper is making enquiries for it now but my hopes are not high. Although it was not overly expensive I had used it on every fishing trip I have been on since 2004, and it is no longer made these days so I thought replacing it would be difficult; most American retailers no longer stock it. However, after doing a quick Google Images search for the knife – a CRKT Crawford-Kasper ‘tactical’ knife, I found a retailer here in Japan who had one for sale, and bought it straight away. The blade is blackened but the knife is the same.

   

I think I got through three knives before settling on this one; no others had the same one-handed opening, resistance to rust (seawater and fish slime make a potent wrecker of metals), extra thumb-operated lock, or a blade that held a razor edge for a long time without sharpening and seemed to be just the right size and shape. I’ve carved up blocks of ice and although I don’t really recommend it, I’ve even shucked oysters with it, which should give you an idea of how tough it is, yet the blade is sharp and fine enough to make sashimi with. Other knives often have a good blade but the folding lock or other internal parts rusted too easily for my liking, sometimes after just one trip. Anyway, I hope this one will last even longer than its predecessor.

Today’s Tiffin

Kashmiri spinach (stir-fried in mustard oil and chilli) and that infamous specialty of Kashmir, mirzwangaan korma (meat cooked with 20 chillies).  The korma is nothing like the sordid sweet/creamy monstrosities served in the majority of ‘Indian’ restaurants in the UK; it is almost dry (a style of serving meat rarely favoured by most of us white folk) but made deliciously tender by slow cooking, where the meat absorbs chilli, tamarind and aniseed-like ground fennel to produce a quite wonderful dish.  I could have definitely used some crumbly seermal bread – stained with saffron milk, of course – to help these dishes down, but this time I had to make do with plain basmati rice.

Today’s Tiffin

Anglo-Indian hard boiled eggs in a lentil sauce, and one of my all time favourites, chicken saagwala.   Plain basmati rice on the side. 

Aji (Horse Mackerel)

 I took thirty on the a.m. half-day boat. 

 After eating the largest fish as sashimi, the survivors were dealt with as himono.

Thanks as always to Bentenya in Kanazawa Hakkei. 

Kanazawa Hakkei