PeterS

I live in the Netherlands, this stuff is grown locally (actually, its the first harvest for this company). For 150 grams (3 medium size pieces) of wasabi i pay 60 euro (88 CAD), so I would say 26 CAD for 1 piece is pretty decent!

Wagyu teppanyaki with fresh wasabi (grown locally, very excited!). Not pictured: king oyster mushroom fried in wagyu fat

Part of yesterday's dinner: red sea bream sashimi, skin on and skin off! The process for making this (seemingly very plain looking) fish was as follows. After buying the freshest fish I could find, I scaled, gutted, cleaned and filleted it and took out the bones. Then I performed a technique called ‘Yubiki’ to cook the skin on one of the fillets, and took the skin of the other fillet. That skinless fillet was ‘aged’ with the help of a Pichit sheet, which removes a lot of moisture and consequently firms up the texture and increases the flavor.

Some sashimi of wild sea bass as an appetizer for dinner yesterday. Still struggling with cutting evenly and plating beautifully, but I'll get there!

I'm definitely not an expert, but I hear this a lot from people living in the USA. As far as I know, people are much less concerned about that here in the Netherlands, but of course I do not know what fishmongers usually do. All I know for sure is that this fish wasn't frozen and that I am still alive

Thanks, that means a lot to me!

Made some quick sushi and sashimi for lunch. Still very much a beginner at this so happy to hear your thoughts on cutting, plating, etc!

Cool, bought the book! Thanks!!

Accidentally mentioned Reddit in the post, this should of course read eGullet...

First a small disclaimer: I am far from a professional chef, and this is quite a long post. Any tips, tricks and constructive criticism is more than welcome! Over the last few weeks, I have experimented with aging fish. I have look around on the internet, but its difficult to find any clear and reliable explanation of techniques and the process behind aging fish. So I would like to take this opportunity to share my (admittedly very limited) experience, and ask for any input the almighty Reddit may have. My process started by buying the freshest fish I could find. This meant obtaining access to a wholesaler, and asking them for fish that was just killed. I ended up buying a kingfish (known in Japanese as hiramasa) farmed locally, that was super fresh and was stored without the guts. One fresh looking kingfish, without fins Red gills I immediately started by drying the cavity of the fish and removing the scales. After, I filleted the fish by taking off its head (which turned into delicious grilled collars later that evening), leaving one side of the fish on the bone. The filleted side turned into delicious fresh sashimi for the evening, while the part on the bone was prepared for aging by wrapping it in tea cloth. I placed the wrapped fish on a wire rack in my fridge, and attached a thermometer to monitor the temperature. The temperature remained between 1-3 degrees Celsius during the aging period (7 days). Sashimi made on the day of the fish purchase Fish before entering the fridge Over the next week, I turned the fish every twelve hours and occasionally took the fish out of the fridge to check if there were any funky areas or weird smells. After 7 days in the fridge, the fish looked like this when it was taken apart: Straight out of the fridge, started incision on the tail Top loin with a nice amount of fat Side shot Finished sashimi of 8 day aged kingfish Close up of sashimi The most important takeaways for me are: Aging this fish improved the flavor of the fattiest part (the belly) the most, and gave it a lot stronger flavor that lasted in the mouth for quite a while The texture of the top loin was greatly improved, and became more dense yet more tender as well The bloodline needs to be removed a bit more as it was a little bit dried out, or the fish needs to be aged whole to prevent this It is fine to keep fish in your fridge for 7 days (I was a little bit hesitant upon the first bite...) Next time I want to try aging the fish hanging up by its tail I am happy to hear your experiences with aging or curing fish!