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Fish and seafood from Japan

Hatahata-zushiハタハタ寿し

Hatahata-zushi is Akita's izushi of sailfin sandfish. The gutted fish is soaked for days in cold water to draw out the blood, pickled a day in vinegar and salt, then layered in a tub with cooked rice, koji, carrot, seaweed and bamboo leaves under a heavy weight. It ripens in a cool place for about three weeks.

Fully documentedFish and seafood17 days – 2.2 months

Recipe

Hatahata-zushi, a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Nesnad, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Amounts from a sourceOne tub for festive use, from the MAFF regional-dish recipe supplied by the Akita rural women's life-improvement study groups ('Akita kyōmi fudoki'). Recipes differ by area and household.
Sandfish (hatahata)10 kgHead, guts and tail removed[maff-hatahata]
Vinegar (pre-pickle)500 cc[maff-hatahata]
Salt (pre-pickle)100 cc[maff-hatahata]
Yuzu and ginger (pre-pickle)To taste[maff-hatahata]
Rice, cooked1.5 kg[maff-hatahata]
Rice koji400 g[maff-hatahata]
Salt (main pickle)110 g[maff-hatahata]
Sake and mirin1 gō each[maff-hatahata]
Carrots4[maff-hatahata]
Red chillies (nanban)10[maff-hatahata]
Funori seaweed1 bag (15 g)[maff-hatahata]
Bamboo-grass leaves70 (10 leaves × 7 layers)[maff-hatahata]
Starterrice koji, mixed into the cooled cooked rice

Total time across the recorded steps: 17 days – 2.2 months

Start
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What changes: The sandfish are trimmed and washed in cold water with salt to remove the slime

Step 1 of 7
Trim the fish and wash off the slime
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Moulds
Lactic acid bacteria

Head, guts and tail are removed; the fish is washed in cold water, rubbed with salt to take off the slime.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Hatahata-zushi is Akita's izushi of sailfin sandfish. The gutted fish is soaked for days in cold water to draw out the blood, pickled a day in vinegar and salt, then layered in a tub with cooked rice, koji, carrot, seaweed and bamboo leaves under a heavy weight. It ripens in a cool place for about three weeks. Made in 7 steps over 17 days – 2.2 months. The longest step, ripen in a cool place, takes 10 days – 2 months (MAFF Japan) and runs at 5–10 °C (Yamada J. and Tsukamoto K). Lactic acid bacteria does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step10 days – 2 monthsReported[maff-hatahata][akita-izushi]Ripen in a cool place
Temperature5–10 °CReported[akita-izushi]Ripen in a cool place
AciditypH 4.4–4.9Measured[akita-izushi]Ripen in a cool place

What makes this one different

Hatahata-zushi is a koji izushi, not a long narezushi. The fish is soaked and vinegar-pickled first and ripens for weeks with koji rice in the cold, unlike funazushi, which is salted for months and fermented in plain rice for half a year or more.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Salt-first hatahata-zushiThe older method salts the fish straight away; the soaking method draws out the slime and blood first for a cleaner taste.
  • Kiri-zushi and ippiki-zushiCut pieces or whole fish.
  • Maru-zushi (全ずし)Only the head is removed and the fish is pickled whole; Wikipedia says this is the kind usually sold in shops, while ippiki-zushi is the most formal and served at celebrations.

Safety

Izushi is Japan's leading food cause of botulism, which can kill, and Japan's farm ministry (MAFF) lists a December 1984 poisoning of six people, none fatal, from izushi of hatahata and salmon. MAFF says the spores do not grow at pH 4.6 or lower, water activity 0.94 or lower, or 3.3 °C or colder. Akita makers ripen mainly at 5–10 °C, which is warmer than that, and four commercial products measured pH 4.4–4.9, so not all were under the limit. The finished izushi is kept in the refrigerator. Tests on those four products found no Clostridium, E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Vibrio or Salmonella, which does not show that any other batch is safe. Heating right before eating, at 80 °C for 20 minutes or 100 °C for 1–2 minutes, destroys the toxin (MAFF). Treat the recipe here as a record of a regional dish, not a tested safe method.

Hazards the sources name: Clostridium botulinum (izushi of hatahata and salmon, 6 patients and no deaths in December 1984, in MAFF's case table); Clostridium, E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Vibrio and Salmonella were tested for and not found in any of four commercial products.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

In the Edo period hatahata was a cheap fish that nobles did not favour but ordinary people liked, and in the early Showa years even inland mountain areas of eastern Akita made izushi from boxes of salted hatahata at the year end (Japanese Wikipedia, citing Hibino 1999). The name comes from an old word for thunder, as the fish come inshore in a large school to spawn when the sea is stormy. Akita's catch once passed 10,000 tonnes a year; after it fell, hatahata became an expensive fish. Of the izushi made in Akita, 93 % was hatahata in a prefectural survey.

  1. [maff-hatahata] MAFF Japan, Uchi no kyōdo ryōri, Hatahata-zushi (Akita), recipe from 'Akita kyōmi fudoki' (Akita rural life study group council)gov
  2. [akita-izushi] Yamada J. and Tsukamoto K., Akita Research Institute of Food and Brewing, Development of high-quality fishery pickles (survey of 25 izushi makers and analysis of four commercial hatahata-zushi), Akita Prefecture report pp. 19–21, tables 1–2 and summarygov
  3. [maff-boto] MAFF Japan, hazard profile, Clostridium botulinum (food poisoning cases and control measures)gov
  4. [wp-ja-hatahata] Japanese Wikipedia, ハタハタ寿司 (cites Hibino Mitsutoshi, Sushi no rekishi o tazunete, Iwanami Shoten, 1999, pp. 103–106)wiki