Fried ── Fried dishes
Ishimochi Jako Karaage
Ishimochi jako karaage — deep-fried small cardinalfish
Small cardinalfish caught in the Setouchi from spring through summer are deep-fried whole, head and bones included — the flesh is scant, but eaten bones and all it's said to carry a faint sweetness, and it's a favorite with a sprinkle of salt and a drink.
- Origin: Okayama
- About 540 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Tiny fish called ishimochi-jako, caught in the Seto Inland Sea from spring through summer, are deep-fried whole. The head is removed first because of an oversized ear bone, but the rest of the fish, bones included, is small enough to eat whole, with a faint sweetness and toasty flavor that comes through as you chew. A simple dusting of salt is all the seasoning it needs.
How it's made
The heads and innards of the fish are removed and rinsed, then the fish are drained well, dusted with potato starch, and deep-fried at around 180°C. They're finished with a sprinkle of salt and eaten hot.
Why it took this shape
Known in some areas as nebuto, these are small fish with little meat on them, and deep-frying is said to be the way to make the most of them, bones and all — sweet and slightly sticky, they're sometimes formed into dumplings too. The dish tracks the fish's spring-through-summer season, a small but telling example of how Seto coastal life has shaped its everyday fish cooking.
Before you go
Dishes in the same style
- Agemaki Yuba no NimonoFresh yuba sheets are layered, rolled into a log, sliced into rounds, and deep-fried before a slow simmer in a light broth — a Nikko dish built on the region's rippled yuba-making craft, served at New Year's and celebrations.
- Aji FryFilleted horse mackerel breaded in panko and fried. Chiba prefecture holds some of the richest mackerel fishing grounds in Japan, and frying is thought to have taken root as a quick way to eat regional brands like the oily 'golden aji' fresh.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Okayama
- Bachi JiruThe offcut ends of hand-stretched somen, called bachi for their resemblance to a shamisen pick, are simmered with daikon, carrot, and fried tofu in Asakuchi's Kamogata — said to hold a firmer bite than the somen strands themselves.
- Buri ZoniIn southern Okayama, New Year's zoni is built around yellowtail, a fish that changes name as it grows and so is read as auspicious, simmered with spinach, daikon, and other root vegetables — a dish passed down through the generations for the New Year's table.
- Chiya GyuJapanese Black raised in Niimi, Okayama, tracing to one of the oldest documented "tsuru-ushi" pedigree lines from the Edo period — said to benefit from the clear Takahashi river and fertile soil.
- Demi KatsudonA freshly fried pork cutlet is doused in hot demi-glace sauce over rice, a bowl said to have been devised by the founder of an old Okayama City restaurant after being won over by Western-style cooking at a Tokyo hotel — toppings vary shop to shop.
- FunameshiCrucian carp caught in the waterways of the reclaimed Kojima Bay farmland, at their least fishy in the cold season, are minced by hand and simmered with root vegetables, the rich broth then ladled over hot rice — also known as tonto-ko-jiru for the sound of the knife against the board.