Raw Fish at Home from The Tokyo Fish Market

Monday, 26 July 2010

Raw Fish at Home from The Tokyo Fish Market

We eat a lot of fish at home. My husband is like, morally opposed to eating too much red meat at home, so whenever I even get the hankering for a steak I usually have to eat it out. Just kidding; he likes to be healthy and I have no choice but to fall in line, because it's "good for me". I remember 5 years ago we used to get totally fat rib eyes and grill 'em up. Now we're too old and "concerned with our cholesterol levels" (code for: my wife's fat ass is out of control) for stuff like that. So, fish it is.

I love all the little specialty shops around Berkeley but Tokyo Fish Market is definitely one of my favorites. Everything is super oishi, and they have tons of pre-prepared Japanese bentos and sushi for lunch, as well as anything and everything you need to make Japanese food at home.

First, let's admire my photography skills from taking a pic of it sitting at a traffic light on my way there.

No, sorry, I'm not currently available for hire to photograph your event. You can't put a price on this kind of skill.

OK. So here's the outside. Girl sitting outside had her serious "WTF" face on as I was snapping a picture of the sign, so I didn't bother to get a better one.

Then I got all paranoid so I only took a few pics of the inside when no one was looking, because I'm pretty sure most stores don't like it when you go around casing the joint.

What I love about this place is that it is very... edited. As in, you're not picking around their produce or selection to find "the good stuff". It's all good stuff; as if they've decided they're only going to sell the best tasting and freshest produce, and you don't have to sit around and "hope" that their food tastes good. Because it always will.

Part of the seafood case (Asian lady customer inside also put her "WTF" face on. I must have looked crazy.):

Blocks of sushi grade fish and fish roe all colors of the rainbow (they have plain, wasabi, habanero, yuzu, and black). It was late in the day so a lot of it had been picked over. Usually I like to marvel at the healthy blocks of toro for $8 or so (I think it's like $38 a pound, not horrible). At restaurants, if you sliced up those $8 blocks of toro you'd be paying like $40 or so for that tiny $8 portion. Alas, my husband doesn't like toro (blasphemy) and I can't eat a whole block myself so it's a waste.

And of course, wall of Japanese candy.

They have a great produce section as well (not just Japanese) and a lot of great frozen Japanese goodies.

So I usually like to buy a couple blocks of sushi grade fish and premade tuna poke. It's a low-prep meal and great for summer. Here's what we had last night:

$7 for the poke, $4.36 for the hamachi, and $3.73 for the salmon. Not bad for a sushi dinner!

I make hand rolls out of the poke because I'm too lazy to make my own spicy tuna mix. Plus, that stuff is delicious.

To make hand rolls, you have to prep rice first. I only made a small amount of sushi rice, so I only made a small amount of dressing. Cook sushi rice according to instructions in your rice cooker.

For 2 cups ALREADY COOKED rice, you'll need
- 1/8 c Rice vinegar
- 2 tbsp Sugar
- 1 tbsp Salt
Cook all three ingredients on low in a saucepan until the sugar and salt dissolve; don't let it get to a boil. Take it off the heat and let it cool.

Then, once your rice is cooled, take 2 cups cooked rice and add the sauce to it. I'd try about half, then mix the rice (run your hands under water and mix with your hands, mixing with a spoon might "mush" the rice), taste it, and add more of the vinegar mixture if you like. I don't really like a lot so I only use half, but that's not normal.

Then, take your nori and your tuna poke and hand roll it up. Also, sliced cucumbers would make this much better, too, but I forgot to buy some. Persian cucumbers are my favorite because they are small and have thin, delicate skin and are fairly easy to find.

First, add about 3 tablespoons of sushi rice in on the side of your half sheet of nori and add a nice heap of poke.

Start rolling, taking the lower right had corner of the roll and roling it to the upper right hand corner of the square of rice.

Roll it up and dab a little bit of water on the corner of the nori to get it to stick closed.

All done!

Eat. Then blog about it. The end.

Have you ever prepared your own sushi at home?