Nanbanzuke

Fried fish put hot into cold marinade, so it drinks it instead of sitting in it.

Fish. Not vegetarian — contains fish.

Ingredients

the fish

• 600 g small fish or fish fillets, in pieces
• 4 tablespoons potato starch
• oil, for deep frying

the marinade

• 150 ml rice vinegar
• 100 ml dashi
• 4 tablespoons soy sauce
• 40 g caster sugar
• 2 onions, thinly sliced
• 1 carrot, in fine matchsticks
• 3 dried red chillies, sliced

Method

1. HOT FISH INTO COLD MARINADE, and that order is the recipe. A piece straight out of the oil is still expanding and drinks the marinade as it cools and contracts. Cooled first and then dressed, it sits in the liquid rather than taking it up, and is sharp on the outside and plain within.
2. Make the marinade FIRST so it is cold and waiting.
3. Warm the vinegar, dashi, soy and sugar only until the sugar dissolves. Do not boil -- boiling drives the vinegar's edge off and that edge is the dish.
4. Onion, carrot and chilli into the warm marinade raw, then the whole thing cooled completely.
5. SMALL FISH, BONES AND ALL, if you can get them. The vinegar softens fine bones over a day until they are eaten without noticing, which is half the point. Fillets work and are a different, simpler dish.
6. Dry the fish thoroughly and dust in potato starch.
7. Fry at 180C, 3 to 4 minutes, until gold and crisp.
8. STRAIGHT FROM THE OIL INTO THE MARINADE, dripping. Do not drain on paper first; the few seconds matter.
9. Press the pieces under so they are covered, and leave at least 3 hours.
10. BETTER ON DAY TWO AND BEST ON DAY THREE, which is unusual here and worth planning for. It keeps a week refrigerated.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Japan · All recipes