Fermented & preserved
Gosai-zuke
Gosai-zuke — salted, fermented sardines or saury layered with daikon
Salted, fermented sardines are layered with daikon, yuzu, and chili for a winter preserve from the Rokko coast. As sardine catches have thinned, saury increasingly takes their place.
- Origin: Ibaraki Hokota
- About 90 km northeast of Tokyo
What it's made of
Small fish — once sardines, now more often saury — salted and fermented are layered with half-moon slices of daikon, yuzu, and red chili into a winter fermented preserve. A gentle tang and savory depth run through the salt, and the daikon soaks up the fish's flavor; some prefer to rinse off the salt and finish it with a splash of soy sauce, a food once a vital protein source for ordinary households.
How it's made
The fish is cut into chunks, salted, and cured in a barrel for two weeks to a month, then rinsed to remove excess blood and fat. Half-moon slices of daikon are layered with the fish, yuzu juice and peel, chili, and salt in repeating layers, then kept cool or refrigerated, with liquid drawn off along the way, until ready after about two weeks — a labor-intensive process that varies by household.
Why it took this shape
In the years when sardines were caught in huge numbers each autumn off this tidal-mixing coast, this fermented pickling is said to have taken root as a way to make the surplus catch last through winter without waste. Sardine catches have since declined, so saury, which holds its shape better, is now more often used, but the same salting-and-fermenting method has been passed down at local fishmongers.
Dishes in the same style
- Achara ZukeWhite melon, eggplant, and lotus root are pickled in a sweet vinegar spiked with red chili — the name is said to trace to the Portuguese 'achar', carried in through Hakata Bay's old trade, and an odd number of vegetables is used for Obon hospitality.
- AhodakiOld takuan pickle, once its flavor and aroma have faded, is desalted and simmered again in soy sauce, a pantry staple from the Hokusei area. Its name — playfully self-deprecating, roughly "doing a foolish thing" — nods to eating it well past its prime, a frugal way to waste nothing.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Contrast
- Iwashi no Unohana-zukeFresh sardines are salted and vinegar-cured, then packed with tofu lees (its poetic name means 'deutzia blossom'), yuzu peel, and chili — a way, from ports like Otsu and Hirakata, to make the north coast's sardine catch last.
- Kaiso YoseKotoji tsunomata seaweed from the Kashima coast is simmered until it thickens, then poured into a mold and chilled into a jelly-like dish — sold by Choshi merchants before New Year's, it lingers on Rokko-area tables as a palate cleanser.
Also from Ibaraki
- Aka MochiReddish sorghum flour is kneaded with hot water, boiled into dumplings, and coated with sweet bean paste or soybean flour. In flood-prone areas where rice and wheat often failed, sorghum alone survived, making this a stand-in staple.
- Ankou-nabeMonkfish meat, skin, liver, and stomach simmered with vegetables, a winter pot of northern Ibaraki. It is described as a more approachable version of dobujiru, which fishermen ate aboard their boats, and comes in miso and soy-sauce versions.
- Ankou no TomozuBoiled monkfish — flesh, fin, liver, and more — is dipped in a vinegared miso worked through with its own liver, a winter dish from the north coast often paired with fugu as one of Japan's twin winter delicacies.
- Garigari NamasuDaikon is coarsely grated with a bamboo oni-oroshi grater — hence the crunchy 'gari-gari' name — then tossed with vinegared fish. The rough texture is the point, and the dish turns up at New Year's and other gatherings.
- Gomoku InarizushiFried tofu pockets are stuffed with vinegared rice mixed with carrot, burdock, and shiitake. In Kasama, home to Kasama Inari Shrine, the mix grows even more colorful with local soba and walnuts, served to shrine visitors.
- Hamaguri GohanLarge clams from the Kashima coast are stir-fried with carrot and shiitake, and the rice is cooked in their broth. Because each clam's two shells fit only each other, the dish is served at weddings and other celebrations.