Fish and Brewis in Japan

I've been feeling a bit homesick recently, so I decided to embark on a journey to find a way to make fish and brewis in Japan. This quest helped me do something new and fun, as well as re-connect with home, in a way, both of which toned down my feelings of longing.

For the non-Newfoundlanders who may or may not read this post, fish and brewis is an old Newfoundland meal consisting of salt cod and hard bread, both soaked overnight and then fried up in a big, delicious, lumpy mess. Trust me, it's much better than it sounds and looks, as long as you like fish.

My first step was making hard bread. Japan does actually have forms of hard bread, but it's not readily available, and I think it's often flavoured, like with green tea or strawberry, so It was much easier to make my own.

Tada! Hard bread: mix flour, water and salt, then bake until it approximates the consistency of a brick.

My next trick was to find cod. Originally, I thought cod was a rare fish to find here, so I went through the supermarket trying to find something that looked like cod. I picked up something labelled "madara (somethingsomething)" and hoped for the best. As it turns out, "madara" is the name for pacific cod! Go me, and my apparent cod-radar!

Finally, after mutilating the ingredients by soaking the hard bread in water, and rubbing an ocean's worth of salt on the fish, I was ready to turn it into a tasty brown mush.

Mmm, fish and brewis... . Scrunchions (fried fat back pork) and/or onion would have made this even better, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! It tasted like home, and that's one of the best things I can ask for when feeling homesick in the inaka (Japanese countryside).