Korea and Japan · Volume 53, The Grill, the Broth and the Sealed Port

Cep ohaw, Ainu salmon and mountain vegetable soup

Name: Cep ohaw, Ainu salmon and mountain vegetable soup
Total time: 30 min
Yield: Serves four
Cuisine: Hokkaido and Kyushu
Ingredients: 500g salmon, on the bone, cut into large pieces including collar and belly where possible, for four servings; a generous knob a generous knob of rendered fat, historically bear or deer fat; to taste salt, to taste; 1.5 litres water, or as needed to cover generously; as available pukusakina, wild anemone greens, or in a British kitchen a close, humble substitute such as wild garlic leaves or young spring greens

Ainu Hokkaido

Cep ohaw, the Ainu salmon and mountain vegetable soup: a rustic clear broth in a dark, worn wooden bowl, large pale pink chunks of salmon on the bone breaking through the surface.

An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.

Time: 30 minutes

Researched: Researched from 87 sources in the brief, none yet linked in the text
Reviewed: Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
Cooked: Not yet cooked and reported

This is the Ainu's own everyday soup, not a ceremonial dish, and it is given here in that spirit: a working, edible, real recipe, not a museum piece. Ohaw, or ruru, is named for its main ingredient, cep ohaw when built on salmon, and it is boiled simply, salmon and its offcuts, foraged greens where they can be had, fat and salt, until the broth carries the fish's own flavour without disguising it.

As tradition built it

Serves four. About 30 minutes.

Ingredients

500g salmon, on the bone, cut into large pieces including collar and belly where possible, for four servings
a generous knob a generous knob of rendered fat, historically bear or deer fat
to taste salt, to taste
1.5 litres water, or as needed to cover generously
as available pukusakina, wild anemone greens, or in a British kitchen a close, humble substitute such as wild garlic leaves or young spring greens

Method

Put the salmon, rendered fat, salt and water into a pot.
Bring to a bare simmer, never a rolling boil, and cook gently for 25 to 30 minutes until the salmon is just cooked through and the broth has taken on colour and body from the bones and skin.
Add the pukusakina, or the wild garlic leaves or young spring greens substitute, only in the final two minutes, so they wilt rather than overcook.
Season only with salt.
Serve in the bowl it was cooked in, the fat visible on the surface rather than skimmed away.

What a modern chef changes

Precision without changing the dish's character

Rung 2

Method

Poach the salmon collar and belly separately, sous vide at 52 degrees Celsius for 18 minutes, so the fish itself is cooked to a precise, silken doneness independent of the broth's own cooking time.
Build the broth from the reserved bones and skin only, simmered gently for an hour and strained through a chinois for clarity rather than left rustic.
Finish the broth with a small amount of rendered pork or duck fat in place of bear fat, whisked in off the heat to emulsify lightly rather than pooling on top.
Blanch wild garlic leaves for ten seconds, shock in ice water, then blend with a little of the broth in a high power blender to a bright green oil.
Spoon the wild garlic oil over the dish at the table rather than wilting it into the pot.

Notes

Nothing here changes the dish's character, only its precision.

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