I am a native Japanese speaker who used to teach Japanese in a university somewhere on this planet. Currently I don't work but stayed in my house in Northern part of JAPAN. I hope that you could enjoy reading my posts and know what life in Japan is like.
Severe summer heat continues. Since I don’t have my vehicle, I have to walk to a supermarket. Go-and-back is a little less than two miles. I don’t walk this distance in the middle of the day. So, these days, I go shopping right after my supper in the evening.
Tonight, I found some horse mackerels were remaining in the refrigerated shelf of the supermarket. They were fresh fishes for Sashimi (raw fish). But the time was already past 7:30 p.m. There were not many customers in the store. It was highly likely that no customers would buy them until the closing time at 8:30 p.m. If it’s a small shop, those fishes would turn to be grilled fishes and appear on the shelves next day. But because it’s a supermarket, I thought they would be disposed as a waste after the store closed in one hour. I didn’t want them to be wasted. I bought one package in which two horse mackerels were packed.
When I got to my house, I quickly started processing. Now the main dishes of tomorrow supper have already decided. I hope that storing one day in the refrigerator could make the taste of fish meat better.
Horse Mackerels for Sashimi that I bought TonightHorse Mackerels that I processed at 8:30p.m.
There is a Smoking Booth near Bandaiguchi-Exit on JR Niigata station. Oh, but let me tell you, I am not a smoking person. I have never ever smoked even a single cigarette through my life of more than a half century. Passive smoking was terrible when I was a young company man, but I have already retired from company work. Now I am free from smoke of others.
Anyway, I took the photo above, and then I walked to the other side of this smoking booth. What I found there was…
Smoking Booth with Warning Written in Big Letters
It reads; BAN on Smoking Outside This Facility; A lot of complaints are coming (to the City Office) due to part of users with bad manner. If this situation continues, this smoking booth would need to be demolished. We ask you to smoke only inside of the facility.
As if these big letters indicate how the Niigata municipal government is angry with bad smoking people. And I thought that, if there are a lot of complaints, it would not be “part of users” but it might be “many of users”.
This time, I bought Small Horse Mackerels. They costed only 138 JPY (approx. 1 USD)I wouldn’t show you the most cruel process of the cooking. Opened Horse Mackerels were wrapped with Potato Starch.They were fried in Iron Skillet; I don’t like to use Teflon Skillet. Price hike does affect cooking oil also in Japan. So I tried using less oil as possible.It took more than 10 minutes to make them fried well.Sweet Vinegar with Soy Sauce was poured onto Them. Then They were kept in Refrigerator for several hours so that the Sauce could go into the Fries. By doing so, vinegar would make fish bones soft.There you go.
Thank you for taking a look at this post until the end. Good day,
A Horse Mackerel that I bought from nearby supermarket today. It was 398 JPYSlices of Horse Mackerel are coated with mixture of wheat and egg.So this is the main dish of today’s my supper. The white things are Tofu.
It took more than one and a half hour for me to cook tonight’s supper.
Horse Mackerel that I bought in a Super Market in Northern town in JAPAN
When it comes to Horse Mackerel, it always start with getting rid of hard scales First.Internal Organs were Removed. Several Cuts for Effective Heating in the Grill They were placed on the tray to go into the Fish Grill in Gas StoveWell- DoneMy Supper Yesterday
The photo above is yesterday’s. I boiled sweet potato in the pan. Those were the potato that I planted in my garden last year.
Still the Ground is Covered with Snow in my Region
This is a photo of today. I wanted to take a picture of train running, but those local trains do not come so frequently.
Mackerel in the Package about 4 USD
Today I bought the fish Mackerel. That was not “Horse Mackerel”, but simply “Mackerel”. This is Japan, but we usually see on the supermarket shelves, “Mackerel from Norway”. The mackerel in the photo was not from Norway, but from an Island of Sado which is the major island of Niigata Prefecture.
Mackerel being Boiled with Miso
I boiled them with Miso which is salty soy bean paste for seasoning. Not only Miso, I used also a little bit of sugar, ginger slices, pieces of red pepper, and Japanese Sake for seasoning.
Boiled Mackerel on a Plate
The white slices accompanying with Mackerel is white part of green onion.
My Supper Tonight
Now it’s already the last third (we call it “Gejun”) of Februray. But this winter is cold and still going on. Since the spring semester will start from the coming week, I have been just making PPT slides all day for my classes.
I found them in the supermarket where I always go buy food. Many packages of small horse mackerels were left unsold on the shelve. They were 30 percent discounted from the original price. But the original price was already reasonable because it was less than Two USD. I think that the problem was that they were too small to cook and eat. It was obvious that soon a lot of small horse mackerels were going to be thrown to be waste. Feeling sorry for that, I decided buying them.
Horse Mackerels’ Hard Scale
When you cook horse mackerels, you need to cut the hard scales off from the body side from the tale.
Opened Body of Horse Mackerel
I wouldn’t show you the most cruel part of the cooking process.
Fishes Wrapped with Potato Starch
Put a lot of Potato Starch around the fishes. I didn’t use fresh egg between the fishes and the starch. I just put the starch directly to the fishes.
Fry in a Pan with Oil
Frying uses a lot of Oil. I usually use a good oil (a little expensive one), but for frying, I bought a cheap cooking oil.
The municipal government where I live has been collecting those cooking oils for recycling. I saw many bottles of dirty brown cooking oil were gathered at the entrance of the community center. Since there is a library in that building, I saw it every time I go to borrow books. But recently the city decided to stop collecting the oil. I don’t know why, because the city government doesn’t say anything about the reason explicitly to us. Recycling is good, so I think there must be a reason for stopping the recycling of used cooking oil.
Draining Excess Oil with Cooking Paper
Oil is not good for our health. I put fried fishes onto cooking paper in order to remove excess oil.
Fried Horse Mackerels with Lemon Slice
Actually this is not the completion of the frying horse mackerels with potato starch. But I didn’t have time to do the end process of the cooking because I wanted to serve this for the dinner soon.
We Japanese usually put the fried horse mackerels into a sour sauce and keep it at least one night. The sauce is made of soy sauce, vinegar, and sugar. Ginger and red pepper are used for seasoning. Plus, slices of Carrots, onions, and peppers are accompanied. Those sauce and slices are poured onto fried mackerels and they are kept in the refrigerator. A good things of that are not only good taste, but also the vinegar makes the fish bones softer. When you come to Japan, please try to eat this menu that is “Aji no Namban Dzuke”.
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