Best Asian Fish Types
Akami is a part of bluefin tuna that refers to lean red meat. This is the main part of the fish, so it's more readily available than the other parts, called chūtoro and otoro. It has the least fat out of the whole tuna, which makes it the most affordable.
Akami is typically used atop rice in sashimi or nigiri. In a sushi restaurant, if you order maguro (a broad term for tuna), you will get akami from whichever species of tuna they have on hand. This part of tuna also has the most umami tuna flavor of all other, fattier cuts.
Otoro is a part of bluefin tuna that is the most desirable. It comes from the inside of the belly and it's the fattiest part of the fish. The texture is often described as intensely rich, marbled, and having melt-in-the-mouth properties. Due to these facts, it's traditionally the most expensive part of bluefin tuna.
It's often used in sashimi and nigiri, giving the dish a sweeter flavor. Otoro is the best during winter, once the tuna acquires additional body fat. It should always be consumed fresh as it doesn't last too much when frozen. This part of tuna is rarely found outside of Japan.
Unagi is the Japanese word referring to the freshwater eel, commonly used in Japanese cuisine. It is mainly consumed in the form of fillets, which are always grilled due to the presence of harmful toxins. The fillets are then spread with a sweet and salty sauce made with soy sauce, mirin, and sugar.
Although unagi is consumed in the entire country, there are slight regional differences in the way the eel is cut and prepared. In Kanto region, the cuts are made from the back, and the fillets are grilled and steamed, while in Kansai the eel is cut from the stomach and the fillets are merely grilled.
Bangus is the national fish of Philippines, called milkfish in English. It is an adaptable, tough, and sturdy fish that can survive in confined spaces, so it is regularly bred on fish farms, which is the reason why it is widely available all over the Philippines.
The flavor of milkfish is distinctive and mild, best paired with complementary ingredients. Bangus is usually cooked in soups, fried, grilled, barbecued, stuffed or stewed in various spices, ginger and vinegar, but the varieties of bangus-based dishes are numerous.
Chūtoro is a part of bluefin tuna that refers to medium fatty cuts when served as a part of nigiri or sashimi. The tuna yields otoro (fatty parts from the belly), akami (red meat), and chūtoro, which is a combination of both that's found near the skin on the back and belly.
It's a mix of otoro's sweetness and a deep, slightly bitter flavor of akami. This part of bluefin tuna is usually a bit more on the expensive side, and it's typically served on special occasions or festivities. Specifically, the part of the back near the head is called sekami, the center of the back is senaka, and the part near the tail is called seshimo.
Ilish (Tenualosa ilisha) is a fish that is mostly found in the coastal waters of the Bay of Bengal. During the monsoon season, it moves upstream to the rivers of Padma and Ganga to sprawl. It may reach the size of 50cm, and it can weigh up to three kilograms.
The fish is appreciated for its tender flesh and its roe, which is often named as the caviar of the tropics. Ilish is an incredibly important ingredient for Bengali, both in Bangladesh and West Bengal. It is used in a variety of ways, from simple frying to steaming and simmering in thick, flavorful sauces, as well as in the classic fish stew macher jhol.
Grass carp (lat. Ctenopharyngodon idella) is a species of freshwater fish native to rivers and lakes in eastern Asia, from northern Vietnam to the Amur River on the Siberia-China border. Grass carp are large, with elongated, torpedo-shaped bodies.
They usually have silvery to olive-green coloring on the back, fading to white on the belly. Adult fish can reach significant sizes, often measuring over a meter in length and weighing up to 40 kg (88 lbs) or more. True to its name, the grass carp primarily feeds on aquatic plants.
Fugu is the Japanese word for a fish known as pufferfish, blowfish, or globefish. The fish is infamous for its poisonous parts that contain the lethal poison tetrodotoxin, highly concentrated in the liver, ovaries, eyes, and skin. Trained chefs who want to prepare fugu must undergo scrutinized testing and licensing that is done at local government level.
However, some people prefer the light numbing sensation that the fugu toxin produces, so they ask the chefs to serve them small parts of the toxic organs. In Japan, fugu is usually consumed in specialized restaurants that serve a complete meal which typically includes several courses of the fish served in varying ways, such as fugu sashimi, boiled fugu chiri, fugu rice porridge, or deep-fried fugu.
Rohu (lat. Labeo rohita) is a species of freshwater fish of the carp family native to South East Asia that populates the rivers of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nepal. It has a streamlined body with a slightly arched head and a small mouth.
The color is a bright silver with a bluish-green tint with a distinctive black patch on its tail fin. Mature rohu fish can grow up to 2 meters (6.4 ft) in length and weigh up to 20 kilograms (44 lbs), although most commonly, they average around 0.5 meters (1.6 ft).
Nigorobuna or round crucian carp is a wild goldfish that's native to Japan. The fish swim in Lake Biwa in the Shiga Prefecture. They're traditionally used for the preparation of funazushi, where whole nigorobuna are salted and fermented in beds of cooked rice.
Funazushi is a local specialty of Shiga and it's notorious for its pungent aroma. Round crucian carp is always used to prepare the authentic funazushi that's tender down to the bones, unlike the imitations made with gengorobuna fish.
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