In honor of Senshuraku, I sourced some madai and cooked it up for the family dinner. I am still working on a more complete article to discuss it, but I want to tease it here. Frankly, the recipe that I used was so easy that the proper term would probably just be “method” rather than recipe. My social media followers will know that I tested this out last weekend.

There’s an Instagram account, AndrejCooksFish that I find interesting and actually tangentially relevant to sumo because of the importance of tai. And let’s face it, Tai is important to sumo and has deeper, cultural significance to Japanese culture which I will explore in more depth in a future article. He was promoting madai in London and it caught my eye. So, I reached out to some folks and sourced some fillets for testing out last week. I must say, the experiment turned out well.

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A post shared by Andrej Urosevic (@andrejcooksfish)

Those of you who are in and near NYC are lucky. I found a nice market there who shipped me a couple of fillets. (MOGMOG) It was about $220 for the fish, $45 for shipping. They would have shipped me a whole fish but for my experiment, I wanted fillets because I’m doing one thing at a time and learning how to fillet a fish is for later.

I actually want to do the “king of filleting” techniques, emphasis on the “T,” because the kids didn’t like the skin. The way that Andrej does it in the video above, separates the skin from the flesh. So, keep in mind that the way I did it kept the skin. I liked the skin. It was crispy.

Method

1. Salt
2. Wait thirty minutes
3. Pat dry
4. Heat pan to medium-high
5. Add a wee bit of oil and use paper towel to spread it and pick up excess
6. Put in pan, skin side down
7. Cook for 3-5 minutes
8. Flip and cook the other side for a minute or two
9. Serve with rice and a splash of ponzu (not shown)
10. Done

What you see above is the tail portion of one of the tail fillets. I got two fish so there were 8 hunks of fish. This was the tail (approximately 100g) of one of those. I used 100g portions because many Japanese recipes use 100g portion for the protein. That was not enough so the second time I cooked it, the next night, I was using 220g-250g. That first night, the kids ate their 100g and immediately fought for another portion — it was that good.

As an aside, if you ever want to lose weight, eat a Japanese diet with a Japanese portion size. I did that a few years ago and shed like 30lbs. But I had to stop eating at restaurants here in The States because I would be full half-way through my meal. It took about two weeks to train my stomach for that but I was living the dream. But I digress. (Tangent is my middle name.)

I cooked it again last night with the little bit that I had leftover from last week and it tasted like fish. You know, the fish taste that you get at a fish restaurant, fish-sticks flavor. I’m not a huge fan of that flavor. Last week it was fresh and much better, demonstrating to me the importance of timing. I would have still been charged $25 for a serving of what I ate last night at a chain restaurant. It was just alright, last week was amazing.

Tonight’s Match-Ups

“Andy, I’m not here for fish, I’m here for fighting.”

Well, if you win those fights and want to hold the fish, you gotta learn what fish they hold and how to cook it. But let’s get back to the wrastling.

Lower Divisions

In Sandanme, Tenshoyama and Tochimusashi are 7-0. They’ll fight a playoff tonight. In Makushita, we’ll have the big 7-man playoff. Lots will be drawn, one guy will get a bye. The other six will fight. The three winners join the guy with the bye in a semi-final. The two winners fight each other for the yusho. So, the winner might fight three times…or two. We literally just did this a couple of months ago. Ikarigata plowed through Omori, Mudoho, and Akua to pick up the title in May.

Juryo

In Juryo, Nishikigi will fight Midorifuji in a Darwin bout. The winner is kachi-koshi, the loser make-koshi. Enho and Mudoho will fight for their kachi-koshi as Mudoho (Oho’s brother) visits from Makushita. Tochitaikai will fight Kitanowaka (7-7), with the urgency of a Darwin bout. Demotion to Makushita is on the line and even if Nishikigi loses, I don’t think he’s safe. It will be interesting here but 7-8 conceivably stays where they are while 6-9 gets the drop. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Shonannoumi will fight Tokihayate for the yusho. Win, and it’s his. Lose, and he might have to fight in a play-off. Arashifuji will fight Kyokukaiyu (7-7), and Toshinofuji will fight Kagayaki (7-7). If they both win and Shonannoumi loses his first bout. We’ll have a three-way contest where the first guy with two consecutive wins will take the title.

Makuuchi

Aonishiki (12-2) will fight Atamifuji (11-3) for the yusho. Kirishima is still in this if Atamifuji wins. But he will need to defeat Kotozakura, who seemed to be in “coast” mode against Onosato last night. So, it’s possible that we could have a three-way playoff in Makuuchi, as well. Add in here that Kirishima is possibly fighting for Yokozuna promotion, it just adds to the heat. Sprinkle in some seasoning by realizing that suddenly Atamifuji is certainly in the first leg of an Ozeki run. Who’d have thunk it?

Onosato will fight Kotoshoho for kensho and pride. Fujinokawa will fight Fujiseiun for kachi-koshi, and likely special prizes for Fujinokawa (and maybe a Sekiwake rank in there, too). Kotoeiho will fight Takerufuji and Asanoyama will fight Takayasu. I could see special prizes being on the line there, too. We’ll get the official announcements later.

See you tonight!