Gyoniku Sōsēji (魚肉ソーセージ)
Japanese fish sausage, stuffed into a synthetic film, then poached at high temperature for keeping at room temperature.
| Alaska pollock surimi (white flesh) | 600 g |
| Bluefin tuna or mackerel fillet | 200 g |
| Vegetable fat (solid coconut oil) or lard | 80 g |
| Potato starch | 50 g |
| Fine salt | 15 g |
| Sugar | 8 g |
| Light soy sauce | 10 ml |
| Bonito extract (concentrated dashi) | 5 ml |
| Rice vinegar | 5 ml |
| Ground white pepper | 1 g |
| Synthetic casing or cellulose film (Ø 30–40 mm) | — |
- Preparing the surimi: Use a good-quality Alaska pollock surimi (high grade, white colour, without smell), pre-tempered to about −2 °C. Cut it into pieces before grinding.
- Grinding: Grind the surimi in a bowl cutter at high speed for 2 minutes, gradually incorporating crushed ice (or very cold water). The temperature must not exceed 8 °C. Add the tuna or the mackerel, cut into small dice. Mix for a further minute, until smooth, with a few visible fragments.
- Seasoning: Add the melted and cooled vegetable fat (or lard), the starch, the salt, the sugar, the soy sauce, the dashi, the vinegar and the pepper. Knead or mix to complete homogeneity. The mixture should be sticky and come cleanly away from the sides.
- Cooking test: Form a small ball. Poach it for 5 minutes at 80 °C. Check the texture: firm, elastic, slightly springy. Adjust the seasoning if necessary.
- Stuffing: Stuff into the cellulose film or the synthetic casing. Form sausages of 15 to 20 cm. Clip or tie the ends hermetically: the seal is essential to keeping.
- Sterilising poaching: Poach at 90–95 °C for 40 to 50 minutes until 85 °C at the core. This high-temperature poaching ensures commercial sterility and allows keeping at room temperature for 2 to 3 months.
- Cooling: Plunge at once into ice water. Refrigerate or store at room temperature away from light.
- Serving: Eat directly as a snack. Poach or pan-fry to reheat. Slice and add to ramen, soba, oden (a traditional hotpot) or vegetable stir-fries.
The gyoniku sōsēji stands at the edge of this book: it is not charcuterie in the strict sense, but an industrial fish sausage. It appears here on two counts, because it borrows from the European sausage model its form and part of its technique, and because its mode of keeping pushes to its conclusion the logic of stabilisation the book runs through.
The gyoniku sōsēji was born of a post-war industrial constraint. In 1945, Japan had an overabundant fishing fleet and an undernourished population. The fishing companies (Nippon Suisan, Maruha, Kyokuyo) turned the surpluses of Alaska pollock and tuna into cased sausages modelled on the Germanic arabiki. The first industrial fish sausage was marketed in 1951 by Seinan Kaihatsu in Yawatahama, Ehime prefecture.
Its mode of keeping sets it apart from all the other sausages in this book. Most are refrigerated or smoked; the gyoniku sōsēji is sterilised by high-temperature poaching (90–95 °C) in a hermetic wrapping, which allows it to be kept for up to 90 days without refrigeration.
Its cultural trajectory is remarkable. Born of necessity in the 1950s, it reached its peak in 1965 at 180,000 tonnes, then declined as the standard of living improved. Since the 2000s, it has seen a revival among health-conscious consumers: lower in saturated fat and rich in protein, it has obtained the Tokuho certification (a food for specified health use).
Korea adopted this sausage during the Japanese colonial period (1910–1945) and has produced it since 1963 under the name eomuk sausage. CJ Foods made it a children’s snack under the Maxbong brand. This Korean branch illustrates the diffusion circuits the book documents: a European technique, transmitted to Japan at the start of the twentieth century, adopted by Korea and transformed into a modern snack.
The book
All 144 recipes and their histories, gathered in a single volume.