Marbled Japanese flounder, or flat fish, is in season in the summer time. The white, almost transparent meat is very sweet and fatty, yet delicate and balanced.

Engawa, the collagen-rich, chewy part of the flounder located near the fin, is considered a delicacy and fetches very high prices due to high demand.

Hirame flounder or flatfish with eyes usually on the left of its head and karei flounder or flatfish with eyes usually on the right are easily confused. Hirame is best from autumn to winter, with kanbirame coldest season hirame considered the very finest. Its light white meat is expensive.

Generally, flounder is used in nimono, sashimi, mushimono steamed dishes, furai and itamemono stir-fried dishes. In both Kochi and Oita Prefecture it’s called oya-nirami, ‘the fish that gave its parents a dirty look’ and was thus cursed to have its eyes on the same side of its body. I like hirame, and think it gets an unfair rap in some quarters, not least in the English language where it is also sometimes termed the ‘bastard halibut’..!

Karei
Of the 11 Japanese species, the magarei taken on the Hokkaido and Japan Sea coast is the most common karei. Another is the makogarei, caught from southern Hokkaido to southern Japan. When caught in the Beppu Bay off Oita Prefecture, this fleshy, especially tasty variety is called the shiroshita-garei ‘the flounder from beneath the castle’, as it is rumored to have once fed in the fresh waters beneath the Kinoshita fiefdom castle.

As the eye-placing distinction is unreliable, the best way to tell a karei from a hirame is to look for a smaller mouth. The smaller the fish body, the better the taste. It is often served as karaage dusted in flour and deep-fried, simmered as nitsuke, shioyaki salt-grilled, and also as sashimi if the fish is fresh enough.

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