Cook the local flavors once more

Wakayama bonito and mandarin carpaccio

From: Chestnuts, saury and an autumn feast

Spooning sauce over the carpaccio with shiso and onion

In contrast to the lean first bonito of spring, the fish that head south from around September are called modori-gatsuo, returning bonito. Coming back from their feeding grounds, they are rich in fat, and their pink flesh earns them the nickname toro-katsuo. In Wakayama, boats along the Kinan coast catch bonito by kenken trolling, a method said to have been brought from Hawaii in the Meiji era; fish landed at Susami are known as Susami kenken bonito (in season from March to May). This time I ate Wakayama bonito with a sauce of extra-early mandarins from the same prefecture.

Ingredients

Autumn bonito loin
Extra-early mandarins
Onion
Shiso leaves
Balsamic vinegar
Oil

How I made it

Sear the bonito in a frying pan, skin side first
Add balsamic vinegar to the oil left in the pan, then plenty of freshly squeezed mandarin juice, to make the sauce
Slice the bonito, arrange with shiso, thinly sliced onion and mandarin segments, and spoon the sauce over

Sources: pref.wakayama.lg.jp agri.mynavi.jp

This moment in the journey

Mushrooms, autumn bonito and early mandarins

I sliced an onion thin, then spread shiitake, shimeji, enoki and maitake mushrooms on a sheet of foil with a pat of butter and folded it shut. Mushrooms, too, are essential to an autumn table.

Then the other star: autumn bonito, so rich in fat that it is sometimes called toro-katsuo. I seared it skin-side down in a frying pan and decided to cook it Western-style, together with extra-early mandarins. To the oil left in the pan I added balsamic vinegar and plenty of freshly squeezed mandarin juice: a sweet, tart, refreshing sauce.

I sliced the bonito, arranged it with shiso leaves, onion and mandarin segments, and spooned the sauce over. Wakayama bonito and mandarin, as a Japanese-style carpaccio.

Watch this scene on YouTube3:53

Read this scene in the full journey