【Reading】きんき

【English Name】Broadbanded thornyhead

The official standard Japanese name of kinki is "kichiji" (broadbanded thornyhead); it is a deep-sea red fish living in the northern seas. About 30 cm in body length, it is characterized by a vivid vermilion body and large eyes. Its pectoral fins are well developed, and the scientific epithet "macrochir" is said to mean "large hand."

Its habitat is the Pacific side from Hokkaido to Mie Prefecture, dwelling in deep waters of about 100 to 1,500 m. It is almost absent from the Sea of Japan side. The main production areas are the Tohoku region, including Hokkaido (more than half of the national catch), Aomori, Iwate, and Miyagi Prefectures. In Abashiri, Hokkaido, branding as "tsuri-kinki" (line-caught kinki) is advancing.

Its peak season is mainly from autumn to winter, when fat runs richly beneath the skin and throughout the flesh. That said, it is also known as a fish good in flavor year-round. The white flesh has little dark muscle (chiai), and its appeal is an elegant sweetness and abundant fat. The representative way to eat it is simmered in soy sauce, and in Tokyo it has long been enjoyed as a "fish for simmering." It is also favored salt-grilled, dried, as sashimi, and boiled (yuni).

Once, in the Taisho era, it was a fish so cheap it was used as fertilizer, but as catches declined the price soared, and it is now a luxury fish that can exceed ten thousand yen per kilogram. In the north it has also been prized as an auspicious item for its red body color. The red color of its body derives from astaxanthin, accumulated by eating crustaceans such as shrimp.