Sardine Revisited and Improvised

I went to Waitrose this weekend and bought one sardine at fish monger. This time the sardine was frozen and cost 45p. I was wondering it might have added some extra weight by some ice. But never mind, I shouldn't be that tight. But it was 2 pence more expensive than the last time and it was fresh.

I also bought a handful of clams not really thinking what I would do with them. I usually cook them in Spaghetti Vongole but last two times I failed by putting too much salt in it. I finally checked the clam recipe on the internet today and found that because clams contain salt already, I didn't need to put any salt in principle. I hope I remember it next time.

Looks good but it was too salty.

Anyway, I need to cook the sardine fairly quickly and I don't know how to cook a sardine in Italian way. So it will have to be Japanese.

I would have liked grilled sardine but I was very afraid of smoking the whole house with the smell of sardine. I checked a few recipes on internet and decided to simmer cook in soup. As I was preparing the soup, A bag of lemons I also bought from the weekend shopping came into my sight. I decided to put a few slices of lemon instead of traditional pickled plum ("Umeboshi") in the soup to cook a sardine. I think this might be slightly unconventional but it should be fine as both are sour and probably contain same sort of acid.

While I decided to make clam miso soup trying to remember the recipe I learned from the Japanese cookery school years ago. Although the English clams shells are slightly fatter and clams are slightly darker than what I used to know, it turned out to be very good to my surprise.

Then I suddenly remembered my uncle someone told me how to remove the abductor muscle remained on the shell. Often after taking the clam out of the shell, it leaves the abductor. It is so small I should forget about it but when I used to try to remove it, it didn't want to come off easily. Instead it breaks into fibres and still never come off as if it is rooted into the shell.

Abductor muscle remained in the shell

Here as he told me, I scratched the back of the shell where the abductor is attached with my nail. Then I pinched the abductor with chopsticks and it just came off with no effort. I wonder what this scratch does to a little abductor.

After being scratched

Sardine also turned out to be quite nice. Besides, ginger and lemon I put in together turned out to be nicely cooked as I could eat the skin of lemon and ginger. They especially went nice with rice and I had to have another bowl of rice... 

Weak Fish - 鰯 (iwashi)

Weak Fish - I am again talking about Kanji (Chinese character)  but this time, of sardine. This kanji is just one character and consists of "fish" on the left and "weak" on the right. Most of Kanji referring to fish usually consists of "fish" on the left and something on the right.

For example,

鱈 - cod (fish +snow)
鯖 - mackerel (fish + blue)
鮫 - shark (fish + cross)
鮭 - salmon (fish + triangle tipped decorative ornament - I didn't know the meaning until now) 

As for sardine, I have heard people saying this kanji of 鰯 (iwashi) represents what sardines are very well - because the fish is very fragile and gets rotten quickly (e.g. weak.) And I agree. While chopping the head off and removing guts out, I take extra care so that I don't have to remove meat as well with my finger. I also try to cook as quickly as possible.

I like sardines not just because of its taste but also because of the price. It is very cheap.

In Japan, we "sort of" celebrate 3rd of February as a lunar new year as a tradition. This is called "Setsubun". There are a couple of rituals for Setsubun and one of them was to hang the head of sardine at the door step to deter any evil to come into house. Some explanations are because the head looks scary or sardines are too smelly (even for evils) to come inside the house.

Last February I decided to do something for Setsubun. Hanging a sardine head at the door step is too gross and consequences can be even more scary I decided not to do it. Instead, I decided to eat grilled sardine.

It was as tasty as it looks but while cooking just one sardine in the oven, quite a lot of smoke also came out. In the beginning of February in cold London, I had to leave the window opened for a couple of hours, freezing. The room still smelled like fish after that though. Good thing is probably evils had been smoked away but I will never do it again especially in cold winter.



I went to Borough Market to get some Daikon (Mooli) on one weekend. I thought it was a good opportunity to stop by a fishery and get some sardines for other type of cooking (definitely not grilling.)

Waiting for my turn while other customers buying a lot of fish, most of them were spending about £30 or more, I started feeling sorry for my small shopping because I was only going to buy 2 sardines. Last time I bought one sardine at Waitrose, it was only 43p...

Then my turn came. A macho looking shop clerk came to me saying,"what do you like?"

"Could I have two sardines, please?" I said it loudly, almost shouting.

He then stirred his look on the shelf in front of him and I knew that sardines were sitting right in front of him and when I nearly pointed at a sardine box for him, he turned around and talked to the other shop clerk and said something to him. He then went to the other customer. What about me!? Should I be sorry for small shopping!? 

Now the other guy came around to me saying, "what do you like?" 

"Could I have two sardines, please?" again.

He also stirred his look around the shelf in front of him trying to find the sardine box which was sitting right in front of him (again!) This time I succeeded to point at the sardine box. He picked up two good looking sardines and nicely wrapped into a bag and said, "£1.20, ok?"

"Yeah, OK. Thanks."

Although feeling a bit sorry for spending only £1.20 at the fishery when everyone else is spending £30 to £40 on average, I still couldn't help comparing the price between Waitrose and the market.

£1.20 for two sardines at the market means 60p per sardine. Waitrose sardine was 43p. Let's make it to 50p per sardine for easier calculation. The market sardine is in fact 20% more expensive than Waitrose.

I am usually quite bad at math but this time something kicked into my head and my calculation was quick. "They'd better be super good sardines... " I was thinking on my way home.

I simmered sardines with pickled plum (umeboshi). It was a bit of failure because when I cooked the same dish long time ago, bones were cooked so soft enough to eat. Unfortunately it didn't happen this time. It was still good but with a little bit of disappointment. Oh well, next time (probably from Waitrose.)

Rice in front is mame gohan (pea rice). This was well done. Yoku dekita!