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Welcome to FISH FOOD TIMES
Feb. 2024 issue No.242
Okhotsk atka mackerel dishes
Okhotsk atka mackerel with fish nerve tightening
I got okhotsk atka mackerel with fish nerve tightening. It's not atka mackerel, it's okhotsk atka mackerel.
Okhotsk atka mackerel belongs to the genus Pleurogrammus, family Hexagrammidae, order Scorpioformes. It must be distinguished from atka mackerel, which also has vertical stripes and belongs to the Atka genus. However, the dried fish distributed as Hokke hiraki rarely clearly expresses the difference between the two, and the amount of open-dried okhotsk atka mackerel is smaller than that of atka mackerel.
The big difference between the two is that the okhotsk atka mackerel spawns in the winter, while the atka mackerel spawns in the summer. The okhotsk atka mackerel is mainly found in the waters around Hokkaido, and the atka mackerel is found in the waters of the North Pacific Ocean from the Aleutian Islands to Alaska.
The catch of okhotsk atka mackerel was over 300,000 tons in the 1980s, but it dropped to around 200,000 tons in the 1990s.
More than 95% of okhotsk atka mackerel is caught in Hokkaido, and is a fish rarely caught in other areas. Because it loses its freshness very quickly, it is rarely eaten as sashimi or sushi outside of Hokkaido. Furthermore, because Atka mackerel often contains the hated Anisakis, people are often warned that eating raw Atka mackerel poses a ``high risk of Anisakis poisoning.'' The warning bell is being sounded strongly against eating Atka mackerel as sashimi or sushi.
Anisakis in okhotsk atka mackerel
As Anisakis loses its freshness over time, it moves from the fish's internal organs to the fish meat, so it is most important to remove the internal organs while the fish is still fresh. However, it seems that Anisakis poisoning is no exception even in Hokkaido, where fresh Atka mackerel is supposed to be available, and the Sapporo city website is warning citizens with the image below.
Anisakis is a very troublesome entity, and I wonder how much sales losses the seafood retail industry, such as supermarket fish sections and fish retail stores that sell sashimi, are suffering from the effects of this parasite. There is no doubt that the amount will probably be quite large. The recent frequency of Anisakis poisoning cases is threatening not only the fish retail industry, but also the collapse of the raw eating culture in Japan, which boasts a traditional food culture of eating raw fish as sashimi and sushi.
FISH FOOD TIMES also covered this issue in articles in its October 2014 and October 2021 issues. However, there is still no drastic countermeasure against this problem, and the sad reality is that raw fish sashimi that may be contaminated with Anisakis is rapidly disappearing from fish stores due to risk aversion.
As readers of FISH FOOD TIMES are well aware, the two ways to kill Anisakis are to heat them at temperatures above 60°C for at least one minute, or freeze them at temperatures below -20°C for at least 24 hours. However, if you do this, the original taste of raw fish will be lost. For a long time, I have wondered if there was a way to kill Anisakis without heating or freezing. Recently, I received information that this is possible as long as it is at a factory scale level. In this month's issue, I mentioned Anisakis in okhotsk atka mackerel, and below I would like to briefly mention a newly emerging device that kills Anisakis.
Pulse power
Recently, there was a crowdfunding campaign called ``We want to protect Japan's raw food culture | Please support the social implementation of the new Anisakis eradication method.'' Therefore, I made a small donation in the hope that it would help in some way. The fundraising campaign ended on December 26th last year, with 14,125,000 yen raised against the target amount of 4,000,000 yen. In Japan, there is a high degree of interest in Anisakis poisoning, as evidenced by the large amount of money raised, and it seems safe to say that the project is attracting attention from all over Japan.
This new method of repelling Anisakis for social implementation was jointly researched by Associate Professor Takao Namihira of Kumamoto University's Industrial Nanomaterial Research Institute (Kumamoto City) and Chinari Onizuka, an employee of Japan Seafoods, a seafood processing company in Fukuoka City. This is a method and device for killing Anisakis lurking in fish flesh using pulsed power, which is a huge instantaneous electric power similar to lightning, and is an attempt to bring this to society in a concrete form.
The prototype machine consists of three parts: a cold brine generator, a pulse power source, and a treatment tank. For example, 3 kg of raw horse mackerel fillet can be processed in about 6 minutes by soaking the fish in a treatment tank filled with salt water and repeatedly applying large pulsed currents to kill insects.
The explanatory diagram of the experimental equipment, including the image below, is part of a paper published by Associate Professor Takao Namihira of Kumamoto University Industrial Nanomaterials Research Institute (Kumamoto City) and Chinari Onizuka, an employee of Japan Seafoods.
By establishing a method to kill Anisakis insects using "electric shock" using this device, the risk of Anisakis food poisoning from non-frozen sashimi eaten raw has become close to zero.
On January 4th of this year, I received an email from READY FOR, a crowdfunding service company. What was written there was the following: "Doctoral thesis hearing: Ms. Chinari Onizuka of Japan Seafoods, who has been conducting research and development aimed at eliminating the risk of Anisakis lurking in horse mackerel fillet, will give a presentation at the public hearing as part of her degree acquisition process. The event will consist of a presentation of the contents of the doctoral thesis and a question and answer session by the participants, but it is free to the general public, so if you are interested, please come and join us.
I was very interested in the content, so I headed to Kumamoto University on Monday, January 22nd, when the public hearing was to be held.
The image above shows the public hearing, and it appears that there was only one person like me who had no connection to the doctoral thesis. I felt a little isolated as an outsider, but I had something I really wanted to ask, so I decided to ask a question during the Q&A session at the end, even though I felt out of place.
Even at this point in time, this device seems to require a fairly large device, as shown in the image above. What I felt after listening to the presentation at the public hearing is that the equipment will basically be used in factories such as food manufacturers like Japan Seafoods and the process centers of major supermarkets, and the aim is to make it larger and more efficient in the future.
However, what I have felt so far about Anisakis addiction is, "The main places where poisoning incidents occur are the fish counters of supermarkets and small and medium-sized restaurants, and there is a need for a small machine that can be used in such places.'' I wanted to know if there were any plans to develop equipment that would meet those needs.
Ms Onizuka responded to the question by saying that the plan was "there's no such thing as nothing". It said that it was currently under consideration, and I didn't get the sense that they were taking a very active approach. Her comments at the moment gave the impression that she is focusing more on the results of developing equipment that is tens of times more efficient by increasing its size than by making it smaller. Then, as a supplement to Ms Onizuka's statement, Associate Professor Takao Namihira made the following statement. "We feel that there is a need for a smaller machine, but we don't know how well it will be accepted in terms of price in shops and other workplaces, and that is what worries us the most. We would like to hear opinions from people in the industry involved, I would like to use that as a reference."
Regarding the author's question, I interpreted their responses as follows. ”We feel the need for a small machine and are planning to develop equipment, but from a cost perspective, it is even more difficult to realize this than a large machine for factory use, and I want you to understand that it is not easy.” I did not ask any further questions.
In other words, at this stage, Ms. Onizuka is only saying, ``Breakthrough developments are required in the future, even at the level of large machines.'' Therefore, I felt that it was unlikely that I would be able to have high hopes for small aircraft at this early stage, as the priority would probably be at a later date.
In any case, I wonder how much the quality of raw fish such as horse mackerel and mackerel will change after using current pulse power devices to kill Anisakis with lightning-like electricity. I wanted to experience it with my five senses, such as my tongue and my eyes, to see if the quality of these products does not change at all. In the end, the biggest question is whether the horse mackerel and mackerel processed with the pulse power device can actually be used as ingredients for sashimi and sushi sold at fish counters.
Currently, there is a method of using black lights to combat Anisakis, which takes advantage of the phenomenon in which Anisakis glows in response to ultraviolet light with a wavelength of around 365 nm. However, while this may be effective in making sashimi from one or two horse mackerel or mackerel in a home kitchen, it is of no use in the workplace of a fish store, where an extraordinary number of fish are handled.
If possible, an employee at the fish counter would place the whole box of fish, which weighs around 5kg, which is the average box of fish purchased from a fish market, into a pulse power device and press a button on the machine. In that case, all of the round fish in the box will have dead Anisakis in an instant, which is ideal.
If this becomes possible, supermarkets that are focused on in-store merchandising and have forward-thinking, ambitious, and thriving fish departments will be interested in this machine. For example, if a pulse power device can be obtained at the same price as a mobile vacuum device or an ultra-low temperature stocker, progressive and ambitious supermarket managers will show a positive attitude toward introducing the device at each store.
Okhotsk atka mackerel dishes
Well, enough about pulse power, let's get back to the Okhotsk atka mackerel theme. Okhotsk atka mackerel may contain Anisakis and it is said that it is better to avoid eating it raw, so the topic shifted to how to kill Anisakis. I was able to obtain fresh Okhotsk atka mackerel that was made into fish nerve tightening. I thought it would be such a waste not to make this into sashimi or sushi.
When purchasing an okhotsk atka mackerel, I touched the fish's body, visually checked the color of the gills, and also checked the abdominal tension. This didn't seem like a sharp case of rigor mortis, but rather felt like it was just one step away from a softening state. However, many fatty fish that live in northern waters tend to be soft, so I did not judge this condition to mean that the freshness had already deteriorated.
First, I disassembled the okhotsk atka mackerel into three pieces.
| okhotsk atka mackerel three pieces disassembling process | |
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| 1，Make a longitudinal incision through the relatively soft abdomen. | 5，Insert the cutting edge at the anal fin of the lower body and cut all the way to the backbone. |
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| 2，Remove the internal organs and carefully inspect them for hidden Anisakis. | 6，Make a cut from the dorsal fin of the ower body, and cut it open all the way to the backbone. |
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| 3，While pouring water on it, use a tool to scrape out the chiai meat, being careful to make sure there are no Anisakis left. | 7，Cut from the tail along the back bone to the head and separate the lower body. |
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| 4，Wipe off the moisture from the fish body, and use a knife to separate the head from the area where the fish nerve tightening was made. | 8，Separate the upper body from the centralbone. |
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| 9，When I disassembled the okhotsk atka mackerel into three pieces, I could clearly see that its entire body was whitish and rich in fat. In this state, we visually checked again to see if Anisakis was hiding. | |
I thought about how to handle the okhotsk atka mackerel after disassembling these three pieces, and this time I decided to try a slightly different and unusual method. Assuming that the Anisakis hiding in okhotsk atka mackerel moves from the internal organs to the fish meat, I assumed that it would probably go to the parts around the internal organs. In other words, as a cooking method, I thought it would be better to use fillets suitable for cooking, rather than using the fish meat around the internal organs for sashimi or sushi. The image below shows the process of cutting fillets only around the internal organs on the head side.
| Fillet work process using the head side of okhotsk atka mackerel | |
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| 1，I decided to use poeler for dishes using fillets, so I removed a collar of fish from the upper body. | 5，Remove a collar of fish from the lower body. |
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| 2，Cut out the belly bone of the upper body with a knife. | 6，Cut out the belly bone of the lower body with a knife. |
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| 3，Cut the upper body into two parts, the head side and the tail side. | 7，Cut the lower body into two parts, the head side and the tail side. |
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| 4，A state where the upper body is cut into two parts. | 8，A state in which one okhotsk atka mackerel is cut into four pieces, two on the head side and two on the tail side. |
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| The fillet is a convenient shape for saute, so this time I decided to use poeler. | |
When making okhotsk atka mackerel fillets into dishes such as saute, it is better to remove the chiai bone, but I forgot to remove it this time. When I ate the finished dish, I realized that the thin and long chiai bone had a surprisingly strong presence and was something to be aware of. Below is the poeler cooking process of okhotsk atka mackerel.
| The poeler cooking process of okhotsk atka mackerel | |
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| 1，Put the butter in the frying pan. | 3，Press the okhotsk atka mackerel fillet lightly with a spatula so that it does not curl up. |
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| 2，Salt and pepper the fillets and place them skin-side down in the frying pan. | 4，Heat thoroughly until the skin is browned and crispy. |
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| 5，After removing the heated fillets, add bouillon and white wine to the frying pan, adjust the taste of the sauce, pour this sauce over the fillets on a plate, and finish with garnishes. | |
I tried poeler from okhotsk atka mackerel and thought it was a very good dish. The meat was soft and delicious with just the right amount of fat, and the skin had a particularly gentle and chewy texture, which I thought was a high-quality dish.
Next up was sashimi and sushi from okhotsk atka mackerel. Even in Hokkaido, okhotsk atka mackerel is said to be best avoided if possible. I eat fish with such warnings raw in faraway Fukuoka, Kyushu. Of course, I was confident in my ability to avoid Anisakis, but even though I have eaten grilled open dried fish before, this was my first time eating them raw. When I bought okhotsk atka mackerel, the fish body was not very hard and felt soft. If the fish body hadn't been cut with fish nerve tightening or processed to remove fish blood, I don't know if I would have made it into sashimi or sushi.
The next step is the process before turning okhotsk atka mackerel into sashimi and sushi.
| The process before turning okhotsk atka mackerel into sashimi and sushi. | |
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| 1，A state in which one okhotsk atka mackerel is cut into four pieces, two on the head side and two on the tail side. | 5，There is subcutaneous fat left in fish meat. |
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| 2，Select the tail and use it in sashimi and sushi. | 6，Since sashimi and sushi use half-meat cuts, make V-shaped cuts on both sides of the chiai meat to remove small bones. |
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| 3，Remove fish skin | 7，Even if you make a V-shaped incision, it often ends up being cut halfway because the bone is thin. |
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| 4，There is a lot of subcutaneous fat, making it easy to remove the skin. | 8，A state where a V-shaped incision is made and the small bones are removed. |
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Images of the process of making sashimi and sushi have been omitted. What we learned from making sashimi and sushi is that okhotsk atka mackerel should be commercialized on the premise that it is basically a fish with a soft texture. In other words, I used usutsukuri sashimi for this sashimi, but after trying it, I realized that it would be better to use hiratsukuri sashimi, which is a thicker version of the sashimi. Also, when it comes to sushi, I thought it would be a good idea to cut it a little thicker to preserve the texture, like when working with raw tuna, rather than cutting it too thinly.
okhotsk atka mackerel in raw state
In its raw state, okhotsk atka mackerel is a soft-fleshed fish, but I was able to confirm that it is a very delicious fish both when eaten raw or cooked. Nowadays, frozen atka mackerel from the United States is widely used as ``hottke hiraki'' (dried fish). Okhotsk atka mackerel also seems to be seen as a popular fish for drying. However, raw okhotsk atka mackerel is a delicious fish with a variety of possibilities, so it would be a waste to limit it to such a one-dimensional view.
The graph below shows the yearly trends in the catch of okhotsk atka mackerel in the Hokkaido Rausu Fisheries Cooperative, which is one of the main fishing areas for okhotsk atka mackerel. This shows that the catch of okhotsk atka mackerel has been gradually increasing since the bottom in 2016. I don't know the recent situation as there is no data, but if the catch is still increasing little by little, it would be good news. I hope this positive trend continues uninterrupted.
In predicting what will become of the nationwide needs and sales development of raw okhotsk atka mackerel in the future, there are certain things that are likely to become obstacles to improving its image. The first is that the fish seems to lose its freshness faster than necessary due to its soft flesh, and the second is that it is thought to have a lot of Anisakis lurking in its body. How to overcome this negative image is likely to be the key to whether or not raw okhotsk atka mackerel receives the praise it deserves for its deliciousness.
At least, what I felt after purchasing and cooking raw okhotsk atka mackerel caught in Hokkaido, who lives in Fukuoka, is that I am convinced that raw okhotsk atka mackerel is definitely a delicious fish. I hope that raw okhotsk atka mackerel will be evaluated fairly from now on.
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An opinion and the communication are to iinfo@fish food times
Date of updating 1 Feb. 2024
