Gone fishin’

Tokyo's world-famous Tsukiji fish market hooks a Kiwi chef.

I was in Japan recently as the chef with the Food and Beverage Taskforce, a division of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, to cook for groups of VIPs visiting New Zealand’s stand at Foodex, one of the world’s largest food shows.

Part of the taskforce’s role is to help New Zealand companies at trade shows compete collectively against larger and stronger global brands under a common “Brand New Zealand”, enabling companies to make a much greater impact than they could on their own. But as well as going there to help enhance our reputation as a first-world dining economy, I also went there to eat.

Tokyo at night is like being in the classic movie Blade Runner. It is a city of marvellous, heart-racing, dazzling chaos. The multiple layers of overpasses and underpasses, with constant streaming traffic, eventually lead down to street level where you encounter a riotous assault on your senses. Billboard-sized flashing audio-visual screens scream at you from the sides of buildings, loudspeakers attached to signposts play bird calls, fire engines scream through the city while the crews shout apologies for disturbing your evening, and the neon lights turn night into day. Above the tangle of overhead power and phone lines, the high-rise buildings blink red lights like satanic eyes.

I thought I had encountered all my adventures in food, but Tokyo changed all that. In particular, there was my visit to the world-famous Tsukiji fish market with Sam Lewis, head of the taskforce, and Liz Te Amo, director of projects in north Asia.

Rising at 4.30am after a night of eating yakitori chicken giblets and drinking Kirin beer is not that easy, but you either do that or stay out all night before heading to Tsukiji, the world’s largest wholesale fish and seafood market. Here, 65,000 employees process over 2500 tonnes of fish daily. If anything makes you stop and think seriously about sustainability, this is it. On sale are over 400 species of fish and shellfish, many still alive.

Bluefin tuna, some weighing up to 200kg, lie on pallets. Icy mist rises from the tagged fish that lie with their severed tails unceremoniously shoved into their mouths.

The middlemen bidding on the fish peer intently at the exposed flesh and use torches to illuminate it so they can gauge the fat content. The tuna auction itself takes place at 6am amid a clamour of bells and bidding. Prices for top-quality tuna can reach $130 a kg – a 70kg fish can fetch $9000. This is serious business.

A fresh tuna then leaves the auction rooms for one of the many stalls inside the market where it is prepared for sale. At one stall, I stood mesmerised as two 60-year-old men (one the apprentice) used a metre-long knife on the body of the fish. After carefully lifting the side off, they then divided the fish into quarters on the fishmongers’ bench.

Tokyo’s sushi chefs wander around the stalls, carefully inspecting the fish before buying. It was so beautiful to watch that I had to be dragged away for breakfast at the famous Sushi Maru restaurant in the outer market.

It’s not often you find yourself eating raw fish at 7am, but there I was ordering Omakase, and putting myself in the hands of the warrior-chef behind the counter. This is food that involves all the senses. This is food stripped back to its essential nature, almost austere in its simplicity, and made with the freshest fish you can imagine. I felt I had entered chefs’ paradise as I ate the fatty belly of tuna, a sweet golden sea urchin sitting on fresh seaweed, the marinated eel under a sticky soy-based sauce, thinly sliced kingfish draped delicately over still-warm sushi rice, giant clams with grated white radish … as well as the prawns, octopus, kingfish and mackerel.

Delirious with food happiness, I was eventually dragged out by Sam and Liz into the soft drizzle of a metallic-grey Tokyo morning, barely noticing the two-storey mountains of polystyrene boxes as we waved down a taxi to take us back to our hotel.

On my return to New Zealand, I was leafing through Relish, a new book by Robyn Martin (Chanel & Stylus, $29.99), when I came across a recipe for pickled ginger, the usual accompaniment for sushi fish. This no-fuss book, written for busy people, has easy recipes for preserves to accompany what she calls “modern” food.

As passionfruit are now coming into season, you could make Robyn’s passionfruit and vodka syrup so that you have something ready to drink when you get home from work, have run the bath and put dinner in the oven.

Although we are accustomed to having Japanese pickled ginger with sushi, here is a different take on it. Ensure that you use young ginger, and bottle this pickle in small jars. Try it tossed through a salad with fresh basil, mint and coriander leaves.

PICKLED GINGER

500g root ginger

2 kaffir lime leaves, lightly crushed

Peel the ginger and cut it into matchsticks. Place the ginger in a saucepan of boiling water and bring back to the boil. Remove from the heat and drain well. Sprinkle the ginger with the salt and leave to cool. Place the vinegar and sugar in a saucepan. Slice the white part of the lemon grass finely until there are no more purple rings in the slices. Discard the unringed part. Add the lemon grass slices, chilli and lime leaves to the vinegar. Cover and bring to the boil. Take some hot, clean, dry jars and half fill with the ginger. Pour in enough hot vinegar to cover the ginger and fill the jar to within a centimetre of the top. Seal. Leave for 2 weeks to allow the flavour to develop.

Makes about 3 cups.

TIP: sticks of this pickled ginger are great as a flavour boost when used in rolled sushi. Try it with grated carrot and avocado for a delicious treat.

SERVE THIS DRINK IN shot glasses or use it to flavour cocktails.

PASSIONFRUIT AND VODKA SYRUP

8 large passionfruit

½ cup vodka

Cut open the passionfruit and scoop the pulp into a sieve placed over a bowl. Sieve the juice from the pulp. Put the sugar and water in a saucepan and heat to boiling, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Boil for 5-7 minutes or until the syrup spins a thread when dropped from the tines of a fork. Add the passionfruit juice and bring back to the boil for 1 minute. Cool, then add the vodka. Pour into a hot, clean, dry bottle, then seal.

Makes about 1½ cups.