【Reading】はらびらき/うるめびらき

【English Name】Slicing a fish down its belly

Hara-biraki (belly-opening) is a cutting method in which the knife is inserted from the belly side, cut along the backbone toward the tail, and both fillets are left connected on the dorsal side. It is also called "urume-biraki." The basic procedure is to remove the gills and innards before the work, and it is suited to fish with thin belly skin for which back-opening is difficult, being often used for processing small fish. Most of its use is for dried products, with representative examples including mirin-dried sardines and the split-dried horse mackerel and mackerel. Usually it is processed with the backbone left in, but in the sushi setting the backbone and thin flesh may also be removed as preliminary preparation for whole-fish sushi (sugata-zushi). In grilled eel (unagi kabayaki), it is well known that the Kansai style adopts belly-opening and the Kanto style adopts back-opening, which is said to be due to long-standing dietary customs.