I always wanted to share Buri Teriyaki recipe on the blog and finally, I found the fish at a local market last weekend. Buri is the yellow tail or Japanese amberjack in English. In the Japanese language, the fish change its name according to where they are at their life span. Young yellowtail that are 35cm-60cm in size are called “Hamachi” and “Buri” is the fish that are bigger than 80cm in size. The type of fish that change their name as they grow are called “Shusse Uo” or “Promotion Fish” in English. These fish are considered to be auspicious and are therefore often cooked for happy occasions and celebrations.
Japanese people eat a lot of fish and “Teriyaki” is the popular and common way that people cook fish. As I have explained common Japanese cuisine terminology in a previous post, “Yaki” means fry or grill and “Teri” means to shine. Usually, we make fish or chicken shine with soy sauce, sugar, sake, and mirin combined to make the teriyaki sauce. It is very simple and quick to cook. I ate this a lot while I was still living with my parents in Japan because my father was a fisherman so we had fresh buri often and my mother was a busy kindy teacher so she always cooked something that can be cooked quickly.
The presentation is an important aspect of Japanese cuisine. Even though Teriyaki is shiny, it is brown so I wanted to make this Buri teriyaki look prettier. So I bought a Shiso plant and some radishes from the market. There are many different decorative cutting vegetable techniques and I would like to share one of them. It is called Kikka Kabu (Chrysanthemum flower radish). In Japan, usually we get white coloured radish but here in Australia, I could get only small pinkish coloured one but it looks pretty with its bright pink colour.
You need to place two wooden chopsticks or skewers and place a radish in between so that when you make cuts, you don’t cut it through to the bottom of the radish. Make 2-3 mm cut and then turn the radish 90 degrees and do the same. Soak them in salted water in a bowl and when the radish becomes soft, drain and squeeze the excess water and place them in a vinegar mixture. It looks like Chrysanthemum flower doesn’t it?
Ingredients
- 150 g yellow tail fish fillet
- 1/4 cup Teriyaki sacue
- 10 g butter
- 1 shiso leaf
- 1 amzu radish to garnish
Amazu
- 1 bunch bunch of radish
- 4 tbsp rice vinegar
- 1 tbsp sugar
- pinch of salt
Instructions
- Prepare the yellow tail fillet. Sprinkle salt and leave them for about 15 minutes.
- After 15 minutes, wipe the excess liquid off the fish with paper towels.
- Heat the butter in a frying pan over medium heat.
- Fry both side of the fish until brown.
- Turn the heat up and pour the teriyaki sauce over the fish.
- Cook till the sauce has reduced and become thick and shiny.
- Turn the heat off and serve it with shiso leaf and radish.
Kikka Kabu (Chrysanthemum radish)
- Prepare the radish by washing the radish and cutting off the leaves.
- Make about 2mm thick cuts and then turn 90 degrees and make the same cuts with chopsticks or skewers on the chopping board so that it will not chop the radish completely to the bottom (as the photo in the post indicates)
- Leave prepared radishes in salted water in a bowl for 30 minutes.
- When the radish becomes soft, squeeze ou theexcess water.
- Combine all the Amazu ingredients and soak the radish for 30 minutes.
- This can be kept for a week in the refrigerator.
pablo says
amazing I love it!
Chopstick Chronicles says
Thank you so much!
Aria says
Buri-teriyaki looks very yummy!!I will definitely be trying it sometime soon!! Thanks for sharing!!!!
Yumiko says
Hi Shihoko-san. It’s been a long time since I left a comment. Sorry!
I love buri no teriyaki! Your teriyaki looks just like mine and I can tell that it would be yummy.
You sounded like it was rare to find buri in your area. If so, I sympathise. In my area, buri is sold almost every day at the fish shop. Here in Sydney, it is called king fish and yellow tail is actually aji (鯵). But I know that somewhere in other parts of the world, people call them differently which is very confusing.
Shihoko | Chopstick Chronicles says
Yumiko san Konbanwa. Thank you for your comment 😀 Please don’t be sorry, I appreciate your comments every time and anytime. Anyway, yes, I have been looking for buri for a while and found it finally. The package said yellow tail and I get confused with fish names in English so I also googled too. It said Buri or Hamachi is yellow tail. I thought Aji had a different name. It is very interesting, isn’t it? I would love to move somewhere like your area where you can buy many different fish always. I probably visit Sydney in October, hope I can see you 😀