Tai-meshi, a post-osechi meal

Omedetai

There was that shio-yaki tai starring the osechi dinner. The name of the fish is tai, or medetai… omedetai also means “rejoicing” roughly. I don’t know if it’s a cause or effect, but it became the festive fish in Japan. Another reason is that Ebisu one of 7 Gods of Good Fortune is a fisher and carries a tai fish… it means prosperity of business. And what do you think people wish for the New-Year in a city like Osaka ?

Shio-yaki tai (salted and roasted sea bream)
It’s a Pacific sea bream. It was emptied, the scaled scraped away, by the fishmonger. I rinsed it and sprinkled a little coarse sea salt on it. Waited 5 minutes, slashed the the body (to favor even roasting). Then I placed it on a grill, that was on a flat metal dish and I roasted about 15 minutes in the oven-toaster (broiler).
There is a way to fold the fish and give it the shape of a fish jumping… I didn’t even try. That one just fitted in my oven-toaster, no fantasy was possible.
Usually, it’s roasted in advance and served cold for the Osechi Ryori. I don’t like that much. I roasted mine at the last minute and enjoyed it hot. Well a part of it…

What to do with 3/4 of a cold fish ? There is dish that requires a roasted tai. It’s not always to recycle. Sometimes the fish is roasted especially for that rice specialty.

Tai-meshi

That means sea bream rice.

In the rice-cooker : washed and soaked rice (genmai brown koshihikari), a bit of washed kombu seaweed, the fish, a little sake, a little low salt soy sauce (taking into account that the fish is salted) and a little mirin. Switch on.