Anago

Edomae sushi mostly uses the saltwater conger, madako-anago. Its skin turns soft and moist when simmered, the flesh flaking cleanly off the bone. A glaze reduced from its own simmering liquid is brushed on before serving, so the surface gleams and tastes faintly sweet-salty — the fat's sweetness arrives first, followed slowly by the broth's aroma. It's treated as the standard-bearer of Edomae's cooked toppings, a clear counterpart to raw tuna or cured kohada.

The slime is scraped off first, under hot water or with the back of a knife, to remove what would otherwise taste fishy. It's simmered repeatedly in dashi and sake, flipped, drained, and cooled again and again, until it turns soft enough to melt on the tongue. Before serving, the skin side is seared crisp, then brushed with tsume — the reduced simmering glaze — a texture that only cooking, never rawness, can ever produce.

One account holds that in an Edo without refrigeration, the oily conger spoiled too fast to serve raw, so simmering it through became a form of preservation as much as cooking. Reducing the leftover simmering liquid into glaze, rather than discarding it, follows the same instinct — using every part of the catch. Read together, the need to preserve is what raised Edomae's braising craft into a technique of its own. That it came from the tidal flats of Edo's own inner bay likely made it a familiar, everyday catch as well.