Home made sashimi from sport-caught fish
 

Here in California we catch different types of fish from our ocean -- salmon, halibut, mackerel, albacore tuna, etc. I'm wondering if it's possible to make sashimi out of them.

I heard fish meat for sashimi must be chilled to certain temperature for certain length of time. Is that true? and if so, is there a way for a regular household to do that?

I usually put my fish on ice as soon as they are out of the water, but I don't know if anything beyond would be necessary if you were going to eat it right away. You certainly don't need to do anything with uni/sea urchin beyond breaking them open and consuming them right then and there.

I don't know much about it, but I think I heard about this 'you need to chill the fish' thing before. I think someone told me you needed to almost freeze it to kill off parasites that would normally be killed by cooking, but i'm not sure.

Now that you mention it, yes, the near freeze is used for killing off parasites, and that is really needed for most salmon these days. I am not so sure what the incidence of parasites is in fish that are from deeper waters though.

I guess it depends on the fish and the region. I would certainly do that with any fish that likes to lurk in either fresh water or land-locked salt-water areas because of liver flukes. D: *horrors*

Where I live it is illegal to serve raw fish that hasn't been frozen, but I know they don't do that in Japan.

Yep. Most fish is caught then sliced and served. However, depending on the region, season, etc - there is occasionally some fish that isn`t eaten at certain times due to potential parasites or bacteria.
River, lake, and mixed habitat fish is pretty much never eaten raw without some extensive preparation. (Freezing, blanching, etc) This would include salmon, as it moves between fresh and salt water.

Anyway, if you stick to pure salt water fish you should be alright.
Something you will need to be careful of though is to kill the fish immediately. The faster you get it out of the water and the faster you kill it (by either stabbing it through the head or chopping the head off) - the higher quality and longer lasting meat you have. The natural acid given off while a fish is struggling and dying will make it taste pretty awful and will also make it go bad much more quickly.

I wonder if that is what ended up in my kyuushoku and why it tasted so foul?
:eek:

If its from the sea then take it of the hook, bash it's head then slice away. note. I am only talking about the flesh and not the organs.
I have seen Japanese crowd around a netted catch and pop the tiddlers into their mouths still wriggling.