Search for the best 淡水魚

One of the challenges I face as a Japanese living overseas, is how to cook Japanese food at home using what you can get from the local supermarkets. I tried going to Japanese food shop, but that's a 15 minutes drive and ended up in a bit of a disappointment. So I go to Jelmoli sometimes if I ultimately need something, but as a rookie chef trying to please the one and only guest every evening (Tom), there are still examines and practices to be made.

In a country where there are no sea but lots of lakes, it seems difficult to find seafood in supermarkets. But this isn't true. Although expensive (well everything is expensive here anyway), you can get seafood and last evening I had tried making 西京焼きat home.

Never had I went to a local supermarket (Coop or MIGROS) to buy fresh fish yet but only in Globus which is expensive, I tried MIGROS at Lowenstrasse. The seafood section was quite big, with fresh fish in the showcase, but they were filled with fish from the lakes.

Even difficult to find out what the fish are since it's written in German anyway, I had no clue whatsover but to pick something, especially having an old man behind the showcase waiting for me to pick something.

So I did.

The 2 fillets on the left are from the same fish. Just as the guy started cutting the fish, and how much he was putting strength to cut it, I had to pick another fish just in case the first one could be bad. The 2 fillets are actually, and surprisingly, from the Lake of Zurich which I pass across by tram every morning. I do not know the name of the fish...The second fish, I am not aware of where it's from, but the fish had a name "Colin".

Have to admit the fish from the lake smells. I marinated with salt for far more than my mom had told me, but the result was still the same. But take a look;

献立：

チューリッヒ湖原産、淡水魚の西京焼き

切り干し大根

野菜のスープ

ご飯

I was right - the non-Colin fillets were so hard it was like chewing gum. The skin was somehow sticky, and Tom had hard time trying to wipe the skin which sticked on his fingers. The bones were so big and there were lots of them, it was difficult to taste the fish cause the bones got in your way, even though it was tasteless. On the other hand, Colin was perfect. The fish had been marinated at the same time, for more than 5 hours, and the taste of miso was perfectly simmered onto Colin, whereas non-Colin hardly.

So one thing I know, go for Colin.

But I guess there needs to be some more experiments to be made on the fish from Lake of Zurich to make a final decision, not to go for the fresh fish from the Lake of Zurich!!

To be continued...