Here is a simple and quick fish stock recipe.

Take a cup of Katsuo bushi (dried bonito shavings), a litre of water and a medium sized piece of dried konbu kelp.

Clean and soak the konbu in water for half an hour to reconstitute it then heat it over medium heat until about to boil. Removethe konbu and add the katsuo bushi. Simmer slowly for a few minutes and remove any froth that appears.

Sieve the stock to remove all of the katsuo and then you have, remaining, a nearlyclear and delicious fish stock.

Katsuobushi is a very strange product that comes from a very strange process.

A fillet of Katsuo bonito is fermented to remove all of the remaining fat and then thoroughly dried until it is as hard as wood.

At this stage the fillet could easily be mistaken for wood since it is sort of grey as well as hard and dry. The fillet is traditionally slid over an inverted shaving plane that makes the fine slivers that you see in the photo. Today I’m sure there is a massive machine doing the work but still a single fillet makes a big pile of shavings.

Katsuo bushi is then used as an ingredient or topping for a lot of Japanese dishes or as a base for fish stock as we will see tomorrow. The quickest way that I like it is a little piled up on top of tofu with a little soy sauce.

Here is my recipe for making Tataki Katsuo

Take a fresh fillet of Katsuo (or any other thick fresh fillet).

Fry the fillet on all sides very quickly until it just goes white leaving the centre raw.

Cool it quickly in the fridge or freezer to stop the cooking.

Then marinade the whole lot in ponzu sauce with a little finely grated ginger and sliced long onion.

After a quarter of an hour slice it and serve with the left over marinade for dipping.

It is doubly delicious with grated and squeezed daikon.

The second in this Katsuo mini series is a particular favourite of mine. Katsuo Tataki is simply a fillet of Katsuo that has been lightly seared on all sides leaving the inside white. It is usually marinated in a special sauce or just dipped in the same when it is eaten.

Tataki is also a method used for meat like Beef but Katsuo is something particularly good.

The tataki in the picture above was bought ready to eat from a local supermarket. I think it was probably caught, grilled and frozen before it got to me. But all the same it was delicious. Latter this week, I’ll post about how to do it yourself. It’s very simple and absolutely beautiful to eat with rice, ponzu and grated daikon.

Katsuo is another very popular fish in Japan. It is getting quite rare in Japanese waters but still grows to about 1m long and up to 25 kg. As pictured it is eaten as sashimi. This is the simplest way to eat it. Just swimmingly fresh fish, filleted and dipped in soy, ginger or wasabi. Delicious and totally different to other sashimi. I’ll be posting some other, more involved ways to eat katsuo over the next few days so stay tuned. In the mean time I’d love you to tell me what they call this fish in your part of the world. Try looking up Katsuwonus pelamis.