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Kinme no Nitsuke
Kinme no nitsuke — golden eye snapper simmered sweet with ginger
Golden eye snapper is simmered hard in a soy, sake, and sugar glaze with skin-on ginger. Made with fish landed at Izu peninsula ports including Shimoda, said to be the country's top golden eye snapper port, it's known for the fish's rich fat.
- Origin: Shizuoka Shimoda
- About 130 km southwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
Kinme no nitsuke is an Izu Peninsula dish in which splendid alfonsino is simmered, whole or in pieces, in a sweet sauce of soy sauce, sake, and sugar. Three types of alfonsino are caught in Izu: jikinme, shimakinme, and okikinme. Jikinme, caught by pole and line, is said to be the finest, prized for its rich fat and flavor, and has become a hard-to-find brand fish as catches have declined. The alfonsino landed at Inatori fishing port is this jikinme, known locally as Inatori kinme.
How it's made
The alfonsino is scaled, gutted, and filleted into three pieces, then cut into five to seven portions, with the head split in half. A sauce of sake, sugar, and soy sauce is brought to a boil over high heat, and the fish is added along with thinly sliced ginger, skin on. A drop lid is placed on top and the fish simmers for about ten minutes. For celebratory occasions, the whole fish is reportedly simmered and served on a large platter rather than being cut into pieces.
Why it took this shape
The Izu Peninsula is known for its alfonsino, and Shimoda port is said to land more of the fish than any other in the country. The fish is at its fattest and best from October to late March. Sashimi and simmered fish are the classic preparations, but in recent years the simmered version has reportedly inspired new dishes such as croquettes, burgers, ramen, and dumplings, now served at local restaurants.
Before you go
- How to shop at a supermarketHow to choose prepared foods, sashimi, and packaged sushi, when discount stickers tend to appear, region-only specialties, buying by weight, the checkout and bagging flow, and sampling etiquette at a local supermarket.
- Food for Obon and the harvest moon (tsukimi)A guide to the meat-free shojin ryori and somen served at Obon, and the tsukimi dango offered on the night of the harvest moon.
- At teishoku diners, shokudo, and machi-chukaA guide to the teishoku set-meal format, free rice refills, table placement, and paying at a shokudo-style diner.
Dishes in the same style
- Agonoko UmaniThe roe of egg-bearing flying fish, caught only in early summer, is simmered in stock and soy sauce as an Oki bar snack. Its large grains and dense, sticky texture are prized as a delicacy said to be scarcer even than the fish's flesh.
- Funa MisoCrucian carp is simmered slowly with soybeans for around five hours, then finished in a sauce of red miso and coarse sugar. A freshwater fish dish of the Kiso rivers' lower basin, made with fatty winter carp simmered until the bones soften through.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Shizuoka
- Abekawa MochiFresh-pounded rice cake is dusted in soybean flour mixed with sugar. Named for the Abe River, it's said to have been famous among Tokaido travelers as a teahouse specialty and to appear in the travel novel Tokaidochu Hizakurige.
- BokumeshiSteamed eel and shaved burdock are simmered together and folded into freshly cooked rice. Its name is said to trace to oversized eels unfit for sale, used in staff meals at eel farms along the Oi River — a mixed rice dish of the region.
- Fuji KinkaBred by Shizuoka Prefecture by crossing its own Duroc line, Fujirock, with Jinhua, a rare breed from China's Zhejiang province — found only in Shizuoka. Said to combine Jinhua's tenderness with Fujirock's marbling.
- Fujieda Asa RamenA town that eats ramen at breakfast — often a hot bowl followed by a cold one.
- Fujinomiya YakisobaIt grew up as a postwar snack at Fujinomiya's candy shops and okonomiyaki stalls. Its identity rests on three local staples: chewy steamed noodles, pork-lard cracklings called nikukasu, and a sardine-powder topping called dashiko.
- GawaRaw bonito is minced and mixed into a chilled miso broth with cucumber, pickled plum, and shiso. Its name is said to come from the "gawa-gawa" sound of stirring miso into ice water aboard a fishing boat — originally a summer meal made at sea.