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The scene
Suzu and her friends have stopped off at the café run by Ninomiya's friend, Fukuda.
Fukuda's café. Not sure if it's Beach Muffin or Yamaneko-tei (Wildcat House). The real-life location in Zushi (near Kamakura) nowadays lacks the Yamaneko-tei sign, and Beach Muffin is a vegan café and craft beer taproom.
Suzu and the crew have ordered Fukuda's specialty, whitebait on toast. It's really tasty and Miho asks if it's Fukuda's original recipe, which he confirms.
Suzu asks how old the café is. Fukuda has been running it for 20 years now. Suzu wants to know if he's always served whitebait toast, and he explains it was originally something he made for himself for lunch. However, one day a customer saw him eating the toast and wanted to have it too, which is when Fukuda decided to put it on the menu.
On the way back home Suzu is lost in thought. She is still thinking about the whitebait toast because it's reminded her of something... Her father used to make it for her. He must have frequented Fukuda's cafe back when he lived in Kamakura. Fuuta asks if Suzu wants to back to the café tomorrow and ask Fukuda about his father. He also suggests Suzu could ask her sisters. Suzu says it's difficult for her to talk about her father with the sisters.
The food
It's a toast with whitebait on it, and by the looks of it, seaweed. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, there's slightly more to it, but it's still very easy to make.
Recreating the food
It turned out that I'm not the only one who was interested in whitebait toast - Our Little Sister was quite a successful movie and made it pretty popular all of a sudden! So when looking for a recipe, this one on Grape Japan instantly popped up.
It's really a very simple little dish. Lightly toast some bread, add plenty of whitebait, drizzle with olive oil, add green onions and strips of nori seaweed, pop in the toaster oven for just a moment. You can also spread some butter on the toast or add some soy sauce if you want a bit of saltiness, although whitebait by itself is already somewhat salty.
I of course still don't have access to whitebait so I went with shrimp again, like with the rice bowl. I did indeed use some butter on the toast for that extra bit of saltiness since the shrimp weren't particularly salty. Later I also tried making the toast with thin strips of surimi instead which worked perfectly as well.
The final step in the recipe was a bit of an issue, however - I don't have a toaster oven. See, the Japanese very rarely have the kinds of large kitchen ranges with ovens and stovetops. It actually makes a lot of sense when you think about Japanese cuisine - how many oven-baked Japanese dishes do you know? As far as I've understood, a typical Japanese kitchen will likely be equipped with the aforementioned toaster oven, a rice cooker, a stove with one or two burners, an electric kettle and a microwave oven, and depending on the size and age of the kitchen, every single one of them might even be countertop appliances. Well, I've never even seen a toaster oven in Finland since we use (usually electric) ranges with both an oven and a stovetop. I decided I'd complete the last step of the recipe by heating the oven fairly hot, to 225°C and chucking the toast in for a minute or two. I honestly think this step isn't even that necessary, though.
Here's my "whitebait" toast!
Trying it out
This simple toast has an overall delightfully mild, airy and even refreshing seafood taste that comes from the shrimp and the seaweed. It is really quite fantastic!
I can't say I love this kind of white bread (after all, I'm Finnish and we mostly eat very dark rye bread), but I think it's sort of necessary for this particular recipe. You could perhaps add a different dimension to it by using a different kind of bread, but I think the bread really shouldn't be the main focus here.
This is just a really nice and easy-to-make snack that I can definitely recommend. It'll transport your mind to a seaside café in Kamakura in no time!
Recipes used
Whitebait toast: Grape Japan
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