Sweetfish (ayu) ✦

Ayu

What it is

Its Japanese name means fragrant fish: it grazes algae off river stones, and a live one smells of melon and cucumber straight through the skin. It lives a single year, spawns and dies, which is why an ayu out of season is not a lesser fish but a spent one.

In the kitchen

Salt it, pack a thick crust of salt onto the tail fin so it does not burn, and grill it whole on a skewer over charcoal — guts left in. The bitterness of the viscera is the dish; gut it and you are left with a small plain fish.

Goes with

Salt Water pepper (tade / benitade) Sudachi Shiso Rice Rice vinegar

Also used with

Hana-sanshō (sanshō flower buds)

In season alongside

Bitter melon Borage Chervil Cucumber Belgian endive Fresh green hazelnut

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