Summer is here, and you and the grilled eels are showing an unconcealed fatness....
▐ Grilled eel with a long sauce
Edo was the old name for Tokyo, and the Tokugawa clan, which ruled Japan at the time, lived in Edo Castle and established the shogunate here, making Oedo a de facto political center. Because most of the marine fish used to make sushi in the early days were caught in the waters of Tokyo Bay in front of Edo Castle, the term "Edo-mae" now often appears at the same time as holding sushi, but in fact, "Edo-mae" was first described as a dish made of eel.
In the past, eels were occasionally used for sashimi or steaming, but in most cases they were grilled with sauce, which is today's protagonist: "Puyan eel". The Edo period custom "Shou zhen zhen manuscript" mentions the origin of the term "pu yan": in the old days, people cut eels into long sections, and then used bamboo skewers to be grilled on a charcoal fire, and the appearance of the grilled eels was somewhat similar to the rice of the kabuki, and the name "pu yan" was also derived.
During the Edo period, Japan's economy was unprecedentedly prosperous, its centralization was at its peak, and its infrastructure attracted countless immigrants. In the early days of Edo Castle, most men did not bring their families, and straight men who lacked women to take care of housework could only rely on "takeaway" to solve the problem of food and clothing. As a result, kayaki eel, like convenient, fast, nutritious and delicious foods such as sushi, tempura and mismasuda, greatly satisfied the fast-paced Edo people at that time, and also ushered in a beautiful era of their own great development. In the late Edo period, the price of a bunch of grilled eel was only comparable to a bowl of soba noodles, which also made grilled eel a true popular delicacy.
In the old days, eel shops used wild eels, and they were usually only open during the catch period. Nowadays, wild eels are rarely caught, so except for a few traditional restaurants that insist on using wild eels in the season, most eel shops use farmed eels almost all year round, so that such happy diners can taste delicious eel dishes all year round, coupled with the store's excellence in cooking skills, it is difficult for diners to distinguish the difference between wild eels and farmed eels.
▐ Why is the season for grilling eels in the summer?
Although grilled eel is popular with diners all year round, in Japan people still maintain the tradition of eating eel every summer on "Tōyō uglio". It is said that because the business of an eel shop was not good that year, the university scholar Hiraga Gennai suggested posting in front of the store "Soil with のug の日はうなぎの日", the influence of the big V is leveraged, grilled eels are immediately sold, other shops have followed suit, so this day of the year evolved into a traditional eel day.
Usually fish, shrimp and shellfish taste the best when they accumulate the most fat, and the real fat season for eels is in the winter, in order to resist the cold and prepare for the breeding season, the eels have accumulated thick fat under the skin, and the taste should be more mellow and fatty. Summer is the thinnest and most chai season for eels, so why is it popular to eat eels in summer?
At that time, because the fat of eels was more special, unlike most marine fish that were fresh and sweet, the taste of tame grease, the fat of eels that made a living in fresh water was very fishy, the taste was very fatty, and too much fat would make the grilled eel lose points, so removing grease during grilling became a particularly important step. If the eel itself is not high in fat, it is much more worry-free to handle, and the quality of grilled eel is also guaranteed. Therefore, in the past, it made sense that eel shops regarded summer as the best time to taste eel dishes.
▐ What kind of eel is used for grilled eel?
The three commonly used eels in Japanese materials are anago, tiger eel (Hamo) and Japanese eel (Unagi). Star eels, also known as Kangji eels, caves, and starry glutinous eels, like to burrow and inhabit the mud and sand on the seabed; tiger eels are also called moray eels, the Chinese characters are simply written as "eels", fierce in nature, and also like to hide on the seabed; both belong to moray eels, which are important ingredients for Japanese food. Today's protagonist, The eel, in principle, needs to be selected as a Japanese eel.
Japanese eel (Anguilla japonica), also commonly known as white eel, river eel, is also widely distributed in China's freshwater rivers. It is a freshwater eel with nineteen species of small partners such as European eel and American eel. The Japanese eel is born in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, on the seamount side of the world's deepest Mariana Trench, which is an underwater island close to the surface. Newly hatched eels are transparent and thin leaves, they are slightly lighter than the sea, can drift with the ocean current, also known as "willow leaf eel".
After months of drifting with the waves, the willow leaf eel drifts to the offshore sea to develop into a "glass eel", and grows into a "line eel" with the deposition of pigments on the surface of the body. They migrate into the estuary and eventually grow up and settle in fresh water. Until one day, they felt some kind of mysterious call, swam back to the sea in groups, towards the place where they were born, and like their ancestors, embarked on an epic and magnificent journey of no return, once in a lifetime, traveling thousands of miles.
Wild eels are at risk from overfishing, and while farmed eels have been able to meet huge market demands, the artificial breeding of eels is still difficult and costly, with eels being almost all farmed fish, the only species that rely entirely on wild fry, and a large portion of the eels in Japanese eel shops come from the mainland and Taiwan. Every roasted eel people eat comes from the distant bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
▐ Condensed ingenuity of the soul eel rice
The staff's insistence on the principle of using wild eels is now untenable, and they have to rack their brains to refine their skills and use existing ingredients to present eel dishes that at least do not degrade the quality. Usually, they choose smaller eels to control the firepower, grilled eels are valuable in the delicate texture of fresh eel meat, and sophisticated shops will take the method of live-roasting.
When grilling eel, Kanto and Kansai also present two different genres: the Kansai school usually uses the fish to be cut open from the abdomen, and the iron skewer is directly grilled with charcoal; the kanto school is more exquisite, generally cutting from the back of the fish, first grilling and then steaming and then grilling, which can remove more of the grease and fishy smell of the eel.
Chefs often start preparing before dawn, slaughtering the processed eel on skewers and grilling them for the first time without any seasoning, in order to remove excess fat from the skin. The grilled eel is then put into the steamer and steamed, using the power of steam to remove some fat again, and the eel meat becomes soft after steaming and hydrating. The steamed eels are neatly stacked for later.
The formal grilling is to continue to grill the eel that has been steamed again, and the barbecue method without brushing the sauce is also called "white stew", which is intended to show the original flavor of the eel, can intuitively evaluate the cooking skills of the staff, and is also a manifestation of great confidence in the ingredients.
The roasted eel needs to use the sauce, and the grilled eel is brushed with a special sauce to turn over and grill, which needs to be repeated at least four or five times, which not only ensures that the sauce is flavorful but also retains the texture of the crispy outer and inner sponge of the fish. The roasting heat is extremely important, and if it is not baked enough, it will retain a dirty smell, and if it is too much, it will lose its sticky and soft taste.
The puyaki sauce is mainly made by boiling soy sauce, miso, sweet sake, kelp, eel bone, etc. The sauce ratio is ever-changing, not only can cover up the fishy smell of eels, but also very delicious rice, good sauce is the treasure of the eel shop. Some old restaurants will retain the "old juice", that is, how much must be replenished every day, and there is always a rich sauce that is older than the owner, which can be described as the soul of an eel shop
Grilled eel and white rice are a perfect match, and are usually eaten with mountain pepper powder to enhance the flavor. The rice cooked in place is like a gelatin, both as clear as pearls and with a certain viscosity that fits closely to each other, so that the sauce slowly flows between the gaps in the rice. Just the right softness sets off the unique taste of eels, which is not obtrusive in the mouth and does not lose the nature of the grain of rice. The grains of rice and the sauce shine with an amber-like luster
Eel rice usually has two kinds: eel rice (うなぎ丼) and eel weight (うな重). The eels generally placed in exquisite lacquered wooden lunch boxes are more important than the eels in ordinary bowls, and the "heavy" word for eels has the meaning of layers of eels, and the dark red exquisite lacquerware echoes with amber roasted eels, like a work of art. Eel rice is also divided into different grades and portions, often distinguished by other names such as "pine, bamboo, and plum".