Maguro-bushi ✦

Maguro-bushi (thon séché)

What it is

Bonito is only one of the fish Japan dries into a bushi: tuna, mackerel, sardine and round herring all go through the same simmering, weeks of smoke and long sun-drying. Tuna gives the palest of them, and a packet labelled simply kezuribushi rather than katsuo-kezuribushi is often tuna, or a blend built on it.

In the kitchen

Shave it fine and steep it once, off the boil — a minute or two around 80°C, then strain without pressing. Two percent of the water's weight is plenty, and it belongs under white fish and simmered vegetables where bonito smoke would take the dish over.

Goes with

Kombu Usukuchi shoyu Daikon Mitsuba Silken tofu (kinugoshi) Hakurei turnip

Same species

Albacore Mojama Tuna bottarga Tuna Tuna belly (toro) Ventresca

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