restaurant

Wisdom Home-Town Restaurant

Shiga Chef: Kitamura Family

Funazushi、Ochazuke
Recipe
1) Scale female Nigoro Buna with a knife and remove guts.
2) Remove blood by soaking in salt water for 1-2 hours.
3) Fill fish tightly with salt. Put fish in barrel. Place lid over fish. Put weight on top of lid. Wait for 2 years!　
4) Remove salt from fish. Dry for 1/2 day.
5) Mix with rice and ferment for 1 year.
6) Remove rice add new rice. Ferment for 3 months.
After a little over 3 years voila!

Ochazuke
Place rice, 2-3 slices of funazushi, tororo kobu (a seaweed) in a bowl. Add hot water and 3-3 drops of soy sauce. Mix good and it's ready to eat.

Memo
Every bite you take of funazushi was prepared close to 4 years ago! Preserved foods have always been necessary for people worldwide to supply themselves with food in times of need. Ancestors all over the world have been so clever as to find ways to meet food needs year round. Funazushi is a perfect example.

Funazushi is said to be the roots of the sushi you and I eat today! Funazushi (a type of narezushi) is said to be the origin of mixing rice and fish together which came over with rice culture from Southeast Asia. Over a thousand years of tradition and history accompanied by the care and detail of years of preparation, each bite tastes that much better.

How was it?
Much better than its reputation. Everyone says, "It stinks, it stinks!" It does smell a bit like a sake brewery but it is nothing to keel over about. It has a sharp vinegary flavor. I enjoyed it best in ochazuke (a rice soup dish).

Shiga Prefecture!
This dish is becoming more and more rare these days and it can only be found in Shiga Prefecture. Lake Biwa is home to buna and several other species of fish that are native only to Biwa and Shiga Prefecture. Decisions people in Shiga make about the use of their lake and the preservation of such traditional foods may decide the future of this traditional dish.

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