Knife Skills

At my recent workshop at Saveur, I taxied over a live fish for Chef Sono to butcher the traditional way, a method called ikejime. Why share a cab with a flopping fish? I've been fascinated by this killing process since I first witnessed it in Japan, and Sono-san was kind enough to demonstrate it and explain the technique. This week I learned even more, thanks to an outstanding presentation organized by the Gohan Society and featuring the revered chef Suzuki-san of Sushi Zen restaurant.

One of the most useful skills I've been perfecting this fall working in the En Japanese Brasserie kitchen is boning chicken legs and thighs. I've boned dozens of these suckers so far and I can tell you that knowing how to do so is extremely practical and useful at home, too.

Before that stunning black cod in the picture above was a dish, it was a fish. How did it get from there to here? I asked my man Chef Abe-san at En Japanese Brasserie to demonstrate how to break a fish the Japanese way, a technique called sanmai oroshi -- three part filleting.