Fresh Caught Japanese Grilled Eel (Unagi/Anago Kabayaki)

To my surprise, I caught an American eel the other day off our local dock, and at first I thought I had pulled in a snake–myself and my daughters were screaming, half because the thing was humongous and heavy and snapping at us, and the other half because the seagulls started divebombing us for the other little fish Sophie caught on her rod at the same time.

I was daunted. It was huge and angry and slippery, it’s body producing a thick coat of slime that made it impossible to grab onto. But the thought of making my own Unagi Kabayaki was just too tempting, so despite the fact that many people offered to take it off my hands (we gained a large audience pulling it up), I decided to take it home and give it a go. My husband was less than amused when he saw it, and looked vaguely horrified at this thing I pulled up. It was close to 4 pounds and about 3 feet long, the body the diameter of a small can of coke.

I have to admit that the eel was hard to kill (mentally), it had survived outside of the water (the slime keeping its gills moist) for almost 4 hours at this point. I didn’t want it to suffer while I filleted it up so instead of the traditional method of pinning its head and filleting it live, I put it into my deep freezer–fish, like reptiles, will first go into a hibernating state and then die in their sleep (most of the time, anyway.)

Once it was dead, I took it out and defrosted it under some water and rubbed salt onto the slime. This caused the slippery slime (that it produced in a defense response) to coagulate and slough off while I scraped with a spoon. When it was clean, I laid it out on some paper towels and patted it dry.

Filleting it was another thing I was worried about, and my first fillet job on it came out horrible–not visually appealing as I really had no idea what I was doing, despite the numerous Youtube tutorials I watched in preparation. Thankfully I didn’t puncture the bile sac and managed to gut it in one piece and debone it too.

Finally, I cut it into pieces and skewered them in a somewhat similar fashion to traditional kabayaki, but nowhere near as pretty.

Normally, for kabayaki, the eel should be broiled for 10 minutes first, then steamed for 30 minutes, and then finally grilled over charcoal and slathered with sauce. This is because eel skin is tough, and doing it this way makes it tender. Of course, there are variations where it is grilled immediately, but I wanted to make sure the first time I did it was tasty, or else I probably wouldn’t try it again.

It came out delicious and we’ll be grilling it at the dojo tonight! It’s unbelievable that fresh eel has virtually none of the fishy taste I’m used with with traditional unagi.

July 2022 Update

My knife work with the eel has greatly improved, and we’ve continued to catch eel right here off the shore–I’ve been skipping the steaming step and no one seems to care because there’s absolutely nothing like fresh grilled eel in the summer.

Kabayaki Sauce

• 1/4 cup mirin
• 1/4 cup sake
• 2/3 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup dashi stock
• 1/8 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 pinch grated ginger
• 1 pinch garlic powder
• 1 pinch onion powder
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch (to thicken)

1. Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan and stir over medium heat until thickened and alcohol has burned off.

Eel:
Gut, debone, fillet with skin on, cut into 5 inch segments, and skewer with bamboo skewers perpendicular to the length so that it’s easy to handle and won’t fall apart.

1. Place in an oven safe pan and broil on high for 10 minutes or until skin has started to crisp. Remove and place in a steamer for 30 minutes or in a pressure cooker for 6 minutes. Until skin is fork tender.
2. Prepare grill and place skewers, skin side down over charcoal and brush with kabayaki sauce. Flip and do the same on the other side. Continue slathering on sauce and flipping until slightly charred. Can be done in a toaster oven/conventional oven on broil as well.
3. Update May 2018: Alternatively, you can skip the steaming process and just broil it in the oven from start to finish. The skin was not more tough than normal. I broiled for about 20 minutes, flipping and adding sauce every 4 or so.

Then follow Hitsumabushi recipe to serve, or eat as is.