Grilled and Flaked Pacific Saury Pasta, No Filleting Needed: Ryuji's Japanese-Style Peperoncino with Okra

At the start, Ryuji says saury has been plentiful lately and has started appearing in supermarkets. It's a bit pricey, they say, but still very affordable. Ryuji has covered saury recipes before, but explains that this time they've turned it into pasta, their specialty.

For Ryuji, the go-to saury dishes are takikomi gohan (seasoned rice cooked with ingredients) or pasta. The reason is how fatty saury is. Fatty fish pairs well with dishes that use oil, and Ryuji says it's fantastic in pasta. The two pastas Ryuji thinks go well with saury are peperoncino and tomato sauce, and this time they've given peperoncino a Japanese-style twist. With this much saury on the market, some people probably want to know ways to eat it besides grilling, and that was the motivation for the video.

The pasta used is 1.7 mm. Ryuji says that lately they don't want to use 1.5 mm for filming, because both 1.5 mm and 1.4 mm go soft quickly. Noodles with a 5-minute cooking time end up, after sitting on a plate for 1 minute, as if they'd been boiled for 6 minutes. You have to eat them right away once they're done, Ryuji explains.

There's one staff member on set who is very particular about noodle firmness and won't eat soft pasta. While admitting that they themselves quite like soft pasta, Ryuji says they prepared these noodles for people who like theirs firmer. That's why, lately, they've been recommending 1.7 mm or 1.8 mm for households that don't want to rush through their meal. If you like soft noodles, Ryuji adds, there's no need to worry about it.

The other ingredients are garlic and okra. The garlic comes to just about 20 g for 2 servings. Since it's not the star this time, it's cut into large pieces—just crushed and then halved. You can eat it or pick it out.

The okra is about 80 g, and all of it is used for 2 servings. It was a bit old, but they trimmed it near the stem end and cut it on the diagonal. According to Ryuji, they've often used frozen okra but haven't made much pasta with fresh okra. Mushrooms would be one option for an autumn ingredient, but they've already made plenty of mushroom pasta, so this time they went with okra. Ryuji says okra and saury go together "incredibly well." Adding this much makes the sauce thicken and also changes the flavor of the pasta. Ryuji also remarks, in effect, that okra is sold year-round, so it's easy to get.

This time, the fish isn't filleted. Before filming, many people said things like "please don't fillet it" and "I don't want to fillet it." Ryuji says that for people who can fillet fish, filleting is probably easier, but shows a method that works without it.

The guts, however, do get removed. According to Ryuji, including the liver adds bitterness and gives a flavor that not everyone will like. Kids won't be able to eat it; it becomes a grown-up taste. In a previous grilled fish recipe they also sprinkled on sugar, but since this is going into pasta, salt alone is fine.

Ryuji then lines up a filleted saury and a whole saury side by side to compare them. A restaurant would always fillet the fish, but at home, Ryuji says, it tastes better not filleted. The reason is the fat. Filleting removes all the bony parts, and the fat attached to them is lost too. Grilling the fish whole lets that fat go into the pasta, Ryuji explains.

Cut the saury to a length that fits in the frying pan. Wash the inside thoroughly and scrape out the blood and such so it won't turn bitter. For the oil in the sauce, Ryuji says rice bran oil, with its neutral flavor, is best because the saury's own fat is so tasty. They use 2 tablespoons for 2 servings.

The approach is to make grilled fish first and then flake the flesh. That way there's no need to fillet it, and it tastes better too. If you grill the skin until crisp, it becomes fragrant. You can cut off the head, but fat comes out of the head as well, so leaving it on gives a more saury-like flavor. What matters is grilling it until nicely browned, so either a fish grill or a frying pan is fine.

The saury this time was a bit old, and its flesh was starting to fall apart. When a staff member asked, "So even supermarkets have old fish?", Ryuji replied that supermarkets don't make money if they throw things out, so they try to sell everything. Once the fish was grilled, a good amount of fat had rendered into the pan, and that's used in the sauce too.

Once the saury is grilled, use tongs or chopsticks to remove the flesh from the bones. Ryuji says people who are good at eating fish can set aside just the bones, and showed the flesh coming away cleanly. Tongs make it easy to grab, they say.

Saltwater fish have fat in the belly, and the area where the guts were removed earlier comes away easily once grilled. Ryuji says using this part gives the pasta richness. In an exchange with the staff, they explain that it's the same as yakiniku: meat from the fatty parts tastes good.

The small bones can be removed roughly. How thoroughly you remove them is up to you; Ryuji says they themselves can just crunch through small bones, so they eat them without worrying. Anyone can do this if they roughly deal with the bony parts, they sum up.

Bring water to a boil for the pasta. You could make it in one pan, but Ryuji says that after putting in this much effort, it's better to boil the pasta separately.

Leaving the oil from grilling the saury in the frying pan, add about 1½ tablespoons of rice bran oil and the garlic. Because the saury flavor is strong, there's no need to brown the garlic. Next, sauté the okra. Sautéed okra will thicken the sauce when liquid is added later, Ryuji says. A little dried red chili goes in too, because a hint of heat makes it taste good.

Once it's sautéed, add the flaked saury. The saury's umami has come out, but Ryuji wants a bit more, so they add 1 teaspoon of kombu dashi granules. Ryuji says this alone pretty much locks in the flavor. For 1 serving, about half a teaspoon is enough—just a little. Add 1 tablespoon of soy sauce around the edge of the pan so it sizzles and slightly scorches.

The liquid added here isn't pasta water but plain water, about 80 cc. Ryuji asks the staff why, then gives the answer. Pasta water is salty, so adding it would make the dish too salty. That's why water is better, they explain.

One purpose of adding pasta water is to thicken the sauce with the starch that has dissolved into it. This time, though, the okra has already thickened the sauce. Ryuji thinks pasta water isn't needed when okra is involved, and makes up for it with soy sauce. The pasta is boiled in water with 1% salt (10 g per 1 L). You don't need to measure the concentration precisely; if you scoop some up with a spoon, taste it, and it seems about as salty as soup, that's fine, they say. Adding this pasta water to the sauce makes it extremely salty. Ryuji points out that this is a major reason pasta ends up too salty.

Because there was a delay during filming, they added a little more water. Reduce the sauce, letting the liquid evaporate until there's just the right amount.

While reducing the sauce, Ryuji talks about why saury pasta is rarely served in restaurants. If a small bone turns up, it could lead to complaints. At home, people surely want to eat saury in all sorts of ways, so Ryuji thinks this kind of pasta is very well suited to home cooking. Ryuji eats the bones too, but if they bother you, you can remove them.

The package cooking time was 8 minutes, but partly for filming reasons, the pasta was pulled out 1 minute early. When it's combined with the sauce over heat and tossed, the liquid disappears quickly. That's because the okra's sliminess clings to the noodles, which soak up the liquid. Ryuji calls this one of the interesting things about pasta. The plan had been not to use any pasta water, but since there wasn't enough liquid, they added just a little to adjust.

To finish, drizzle rice bran oil over the top. When a staff member asked, "Not olive oil?", Ryuji replied that with olive oil it's harder to taste the saury. Rice bran oil has no strong flavor, so the saury's aroma comes through. Ryuji considers rice bran oil the best choice for saury pasta. And with that, the Japanese-style pasta with seasonal saury and okra is done.

During the tasting, both Ryuji and the staff kept repeating "delicious." A staff member said the saury flavor really comes through and the saury is completely the star. Another comment was that grilling it with the head on brings out just a little of a flavor you could call either depth or bitterness, and that it tastes great. Thanks to the okra, the sauce clings well to the noodles, and Ryuji recommends frozen okra if you don't have fresh on hand. There was also an exchange that olive oil would probably give a different flavor and that rice bran oil is good because it has no strong taste.

On whether people who dislike bitterness would be okay with it, Ryuji said that since the liver was removed, there's probably just a faint bitterness from the saury.

Ryuji looks back on the saury and okra combination as a "discovery" for them. Besides okra, molokhia would also work well, they say. As for why slimy ingredients work so well, Ryuji explains that the sliminess coats the pasta with all the umami released by the saury. Ryuji says this method would also be delicious with sardines, salmon, or yellowtail.

Not having to fillet the fish was also praised again. When there's a filleting step, many people skip ahead in the video, and it raises the bar—though it's easy once you get used to it. If you use saury filleted into three pieces, you grill that first, then add the garlic and so on and proceed the same way, Ryuji says. Ryuji wrapped up by saying that although it takes some effort, the result is delicious enough to make it worthwhile.

Finally, the video shows the steps for people who want to fillet the fish. First, cut off the head. Ryuji forgot to remove the scales, but says you don't need to, since they barely catch on your teeth if you grill the fish until crisp. Open the belly starting from the vent end.

The guts aren't used this time. Ryuji says that with fresh saury, mixing the innards with soy sauce to make wata-joyu (innard soy sauce) is delicious. This time, however, the saury was meant for cooking and its insides were starting to break down, so they weren't needed. When asked whether people who like innards could add them to the pasta, Ryuji answered that they don't suit this pasta, so it's better not to.

The filleting method is daimyo-oroshi, in which the flesh is removed along the backbone in a single pass. Ryuji was filleting with a petty knife, but mentions that a santoku might be better. A staff member said it looked difficult, but Ryuji replied that it's super easy once you're used to it, and filleted the fish in no time. After that, they shave off the rib bones and trim away the gill area to tidy it up. You can pull out the fine pin bones running through the flesh with tweezers, but it's unnecessary since they aren't noticeable once grilled. After confirming that the santoku gives cleaner-looking fillets, Ryuji says this is how to do it if you want to fillet the fish neatly before using it, and the video ends.