Clem's Sashimi
 
 

 

 This was my first attempt at making sashimi. I only began to have sashimi in 2008 because like many people, I had a natural avoidance from eating anything raw. I found in early gastronomic encounters that dousing the sashimi in soy sauce and wasabi masked the raw taste. In time I began to enjoy the product, the soy sauce and wasabi as individually sensed parts of a good sashimi.

I also discovered much later that the much seen practice in Japanese sushi restaurants in Malaysia (and probably elsewhere too), of mixing soy sauce and wasabi to make a dipping condiment is not how the Japanese do it. The customary way is to place a piece of wasabi onto a piece of sashimi or sushi and then dip the product (at the end away from the wasabi) into soy sauce i.e. the soy and the wasabi are kept apart. Also, in the case of sushi the rice part is not dipped in soy sauce (too much of it is taken up between the rice grains). And as many of you will know, wasabi served in restaurants (unless high-end) is not actually real wasabi (although it may contain a small portion of the latter). This restaurant "wasabi" tastes different and is overpoweringly spicy from the addition of horseradish to the blend.

Real wasabi has a different flavour profile and is milder in spice level. In restaurants, if the wasabi served is not spicy at all, it is probably because it is old - wasabi real or otherwise loses its spiciness over time after exposure to air. If making your own wasabi (such as from powder), do it just before serving.

 

  


Salmon (sake サーモン刺身), beef (gyūniku), and tuna maguro)
The wasabi was reconstituted from freeze-dried Tasmanian real wasabi underground stems (rhizomes).
The soy sauce was a Japanese-made sushi/sashimi type (milder and sweeter with sugar, alcohol and liquorice added).

 
 

 

 The salmon was labelled as sashimi grade by the vendor. There is no standard definition of this grade but what it generally means is that the product was handled with good hygiene and that to minimize the presence of viable fish parasites (and their eggs), the product was frozen before sale. The US FDA recommends that salmon is frozen for some 7 days to kill parasite viability prior to it being made into raw product for human consumption. Tuna is routinely frozen right after being caught at sea and so are already freeze-treated. The beef (MB5+ wagyu) was surface flame-seared before slicing as a pre-cautionary step for food safety as I could not find sashimi-grade beef. I also could not find any sashimi grade white-fleshed fish and so something like King Fish is missing from the platter.
 

Being the complete amateur gastronaut, I found that I prefer artificial wasabi from a tube (or powder) rather than the real thing. The Tasmanian  real wasabi (albeit from a free-dried powder) had a earthy, mild spice flavour - not enough kick for me).

 

  
 

 

  

 

 

All my cooking (some without recipes) can be found here (click on each photo to go to that dish's page):

 

http://clemkuek.com/photoalbum/photo696.html

 

Video presentations can be found here:

Clem cooks

 

 

www.clemkuek.com

 

16 February 2026
Chinese New Year's eve



Created by Clem Kuek