ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ZACHERY DYKE
Spearo, fisherman, and passionate home cook. I enjoy harvesting my food from the ocean and sharing it with my friends and family. Follow along as I use species local to Florida to make incredible meals you can make at home.
Simple Wahoo Sashimi
With wahoo season in full swing, I wanted to share one my favorite quick and easy ways to make Wahoo sashimi. Given the size of these fish, and the amount of meat that comes off them, I sometimes find myself trying to think of new ways to eat it. I’ve been a sushi lover since before I started spearfishing, and one of my favorite sushi sauces, is eel sauce. Who doesn’t love eel sauce? To be honest, it goes good on just about every type of fish, and wahoo is no exception.
While you can buy pre-made eel sauce, I’m going to show you how simple it is to make yourself at home. It combines 3 simple ingredients; 2 that are fairly common to have on hand, and 1 that maybe isn’t. The two that are common are soy sauce and brown sugar. The one that might not be so common, is mirin. If you don’t have this on hand you should be able to get it in most grocery stores in their international food section.
The other thing that I like to add on top is seaweed salad. This is something that you can find at a local asian market, or at Publix. I add this for a few reasons. First, it definitely adds a visual appeal to your dish, and because I was serving this sashimi for a get together, I wanted it to look good! Second, it adds a little bit of vinegar, and some nutty notes from the sesame seeds.
Obviously, the main ingredient here is the wahoo. The size of your fish will determine how big the slices are. You can control the thickness, however, by slicing it thin or thick. This one was just over 30lbs, which I consider to be a “perfect eating size” wahoo. While most wahoo I’ve gotten were super tender, if you want your sashimi to have a little more umami flavor, try aging it for a few days first.
Another key point is making sure you have a good knife, especially for slicing the last few pieces when the fillet gets down to almost nothing. I love my Shun Slicing Knife, I use it exclusively for sushi rolls and sashimi. You can use a standard chef knife, or any other sharp knife for that matter, but I really like the length of my shun.
The most important part of making this, is who you share it with. I remember this particular batch I made, I brought over to a pot-luck type get together. There were some people there that often caught wahoo on rod and reel, but had never tried it raw. They were hesitant at first, but once they tried it, they were hooked. I ended up walking back to my place a few times to make more since it was such a hit!
The eel sauce is so good!