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By Root 1033 0

very little mayonnaise and herbs: delicate quantities are heaped into minute tartlet cases or on to circles of buttered bread or piled more generously on to bitter salad leaves. Such dishes will be called marinaded sea bass or salmon tartare, and I imagine that their particular arrangement is to disguise from western sensibilities the raw nature of the fish. Everybody, or so I imagine, knows that it is raw, but their eyes are not assailed. And that makes all the difference. There is no barrier between them and the delicious tasting reality.

With sashimi, the raw nature of the fish is directly apparent. What makes it acceptable is the seductive brilliance of really fresh fish and the beauty of the slicing and general arrangement, including the choice of the bowl or plate. I shall never forget reading an observation of D. H. Enright’s in his book on Japan, that even the most untutored housemaid knows how to present food with elegant grace. By contrast most of us are cack-handed in such matters. But it is fun to try.

If you are filleting whole fish, say a sea bream, cut off the two sides from the bone, skin them and then, if they are from a good-sized fish, divide the fillets down their length. Use the plumpest part for preference. With enormous fish, buy a nicely shaped piece of fillet. Scallops are excellent for sashimi: choose well-formed discs and trim them neatly, and slice them across once or twice according to their thickness.

Here are some of the cuts – beginners will find it easiest to chill the softer fish until it is firm in the freezer, but do not freeze it completely or attempt to use frozen fish.

(1) cut down straight into ½-cm (¼-inch) slices

(2) cut these straight slices across into strips and pile them in a small mound

(3) cut the strips across again into dice – á good cut for firm fish like tuna

(4) slice diagonally downwards in paper-thin slices

(5) cut down at a slight angle into ½-cm (¼-inch) slices

(6) with squid or cuttlefish, cut a flat piece from the bag, make parallel cuts almost but not quite through, then slice completely through at right angles; you can then curve each strip round slightly in a cock’s-comb effect.

Straight cut slices may be served as they were cut, in a close piece. Diagonal slanting slices are arranged like overlapping tiles. Dice, like the strips, can be heaped into little mounds. Scallop discs could be fanned, and a piece or two of squid used as a decoration.

Serves 6

750 g (1½ lb) sea bream or 500 g (1 lb) sole

250 g (8 oz) slice of pink tuna or 375 g (12 oz) mackerel

6 fine scallops, white part only

10-cm (4-inch) length white radish, peeled

1 tablespoon wasabi (green horseradish powder) or 2 tablespoons peeled and finely grated green ginger .

6 spring onions, cut into curly brushes

SAUCE

6 tablespoons shoyu (Japanese soy sauce)

6 tablespoons lime juice

Scale, fillet and skin the whole fish. Skin the tuna. Wrap in cling film and chill until very firm – up to 2 hours – in the freezer. Peel and finely shred the white radish.

No more than an hour before the meal, mix the wasabi to a thick paste with a little water, then let it stand for 20 minutes. If you choose ginger, form it into six little cone-shaped mounds.

Remove the fish from the freezer and cut it into appropriate slices with a very very sharp knife. Use trimmings for fish stock.

TO SERVE Either arrange the fish on six cold plates with a blob of wasabi or a mound of ginger and a loose heap of shredded radish. Decorate with a spring onion brush, and serve bowls of the shoyu and lime juice mixed together. Or else arrange the fish elegantly on one central serving plate, and give each person a tiny bowl of sauce. You could make a sunflower of thin slices of sea bream or bass, with an inner circle of pink tuna or mackerel slices, and a central blob of wasabi. The idea is to help yourself from the plate to a piece of fish, with chopsticks or a fork, dip it into the sauce and then eat it.

TO MAKE SPRING ONION BRUSHES Cut the lower part of spring onions into 3–4-cm