Matsukawa-zukuri

Matsukawa-zukuri (pine-bark style) is the name for a skin-on sashimi cut of madai (真鯛, red seabream) in which the skin is set with boiling water instead of being removed, leaving a contracted, ridged surface that resembles the bark of a pine.^1, 2 It is not a standalone technique, but the madai-specific name for a hot-water skin-scald preparation, and in strict practitioner usage it refers to that hot-water treatment specifically.²

The fish is filleted with the skin left on, and the skin is scored with shallow decorative cuts. The skin-on fillet is laid skin-side up, often on a slightly tilted board and covered with a cloth or paper towel, and boiling water is poured over the skin until it shrinks and curls back; the piece is then immediately transferred to ice water to arrest the heat.³ Once the surface is wiped dry, the flesh is rested briefly under refrigeration so that it firms before slicing.³ The water sets only the skin and the thin layer beneath it, so the flesh beneath stays raw. The same hot-water pass, yubiki (湯引き, hot-water pass), is used on other firm-skinned fish; matsukawa-zukuri is that pass applied to the entire skin side of a madai fillet.^2, 3

Within the trade, matsukawa-zukuri is understood as one member of the kawashimo-zukuri (皮霜造り, skin-scald cut) family: the practice of scalding skin-on white fish so that the skin can be eaten with the flesh. The hot-water form is kawashimo-zukuri; a parallel form, yakishimo (焼霜, flame scald), chars the skin with a flame instead of scalding it. This is the method used for seared skipjack, tataki (鰹のたたき, seared skipjack), and it can also be applied through aburi (炙り, torch searing).⁴ In the strict sense, matsukawa-zukuri is the hot-water (yushimo, 湯霜, hot-water scald) form on madai: the pine-bark resemblance depends on the fine, raised, ridged pattern that scalding sets into the skin, a pattern an open flame would scorch away rather than preserve.^1, 2 In looser contemporary use the name is also extended to the flame-scald variant and to other brightly skinned white fish; the hot-water preparation is documented for kinmedai (金目鯛, splendid alfonsino), valued, like madai, for its bright skin and used in its place.³

In Edomae sushi, whether to leave the skin on a madai is treated as a matter of the sushi chef's judgment. Keeping the skin on retains the subcutaneous fat, adds the skin's gelatinous texture and flavor, and preserves the visual appeal of the colored skin; because raw skin has poor eating quality, it is set with hot water and prepared as matsukawa-zukuri before it is sliced for nigiri (握り) or served as sashimi.²

The method belongs to the older shimofuri (霜降り, frosting) family. In Japanese cookery shimofuri, a contraction of shimofuri-zukuri (霜降造り), denotes sashimi whose surface has been whitened by a brief pass through hot water, the pale, flecked surface likened to a fall of frost; the hot-water form is the kawashimo method and the flame form the yakishimo method.⁴ The preparation is attested early: a cookery text of 1643, the Ryōri Monogatari (料理物語), describes the shimofuri sashimi as made with madai, and in the Edo period the skin-on madai version carried its own name, shimofuri-dai (霜降鯛, frost seabream), the cut now known as kawashimo-zukuri and, for madai, as matsukawa-zukuri.⁴

松皮 matsukawa means pine bark: 松 matsu (pine) and 皮 kawa (bark, skin). When the skin is scalded it contracts into a fine, raised, ridged surface whose texture and mottling recall the rough, plate-like bark of a pine, and the cut takes its name from that resemblance.¹ The second element, 造り zukuri, is the nominalized form of 造る tsukuru (to make, to prepare a cut), voiced from tsukuri to zukuri by rendaku within the compound; it is written both 造り and, equivalently, 作り, so the term appears as both 松皮造り and 松皮作り.¹