seafood

Mackerel braised in miso sauce (Saba no miso ni)

maki — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:22:21 +0200

Here’s another classic Japanese recipe from my mother. I have to admit that I’m not very good with fish, with the exception of simple grilling or panfrying and so on, but my mom has all kinds of great fish recipes up her sleeve.

Last week we spent a rather chilly week in Brittany (Bretagne), where the highlight was definitely the abundance of cheap, really fresh fish available to us. One fish in particular that was really good and inexpensive was maquereau, or Atlantic mackerel, which we know as saba （鯖さば）in Japanese. In Japan, mackerel is usually treated one of three ways: grilled over an open flame (amiyaki), treated with salt and vinegar (shimesaba) and turned into an old fashioned kind of sushi (sabazushi), or gently braised in a sauce with the classic Japanese combination of salty-sweet flavors. This mackerel is cooked in a ginger scented miso sauce, then allowed to cool down in the liquid overnight, which allows the flavors to penetrate the firm flesh of the fish. You barely notice the oiliness at all, and the sauce is plate-lickingly tasty. I like to eat it chilled, right out of the refrigerator, with plain rice and a simple salad on the side. It makes for a refreshing yet rich dish for a summer meal.

Recipe: Mackerel braised in miso sauce (Saba no misoni)

Serves 3 to 4, depending on the size of the fish

1 very fresh large mackerel
1 piece of ginger about 1 inch / 2.5 cm long
1 Tbs. mirin
1 Tbs. sake
1 1/2 Tbs. sugar
1 Tbs. dark soy sauce
2 Tbs. red (akamiso) or blended miso (awase miso), or whatever miso you have

Have the fishmonger take the head off and gut the fish if you can. If not, you will have to do this yourself. Either way, once you get the fish home, wash it carefully and cut it crosswise into 3 to 4 steaks. With the point of your knife, make a slash about 1/4 inch / 1/2 cm or so deep in the skin of the side that will be facing up when you put the pieces into the pot. (This helps the cooking liquid penetrate the fish better.)

Peel and finely julienne (cut into small matchsticks) the piece of fresh ginger.

In a pan that’s large enough to hold the fish pieces in one layer, put in the mirin and sake. Turn on the heat and let this cook until the liquid has bubbled and is almost gone. (This gets rid of most of the alcohol content in the mirin and sake.)

Add about 1/2 cup of water, sugar and the soy sauce, and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Add the julienned ginger and miso, and stir until the miso has dissolved.

Add the fish pieces with the slashed side up, and then add more water until the liquid comes about halfway up the side of the fish. Bring up to a simmer, then lower the heat to about medium-low.

Make a ‘lid’ with some crumbled up aluminum foil with a few holes poked in it, and put this ‘lid’ (an otoshibuta or dropped lid, see here for an explanation of otoshibuta) on top of the fish.

Simmer on medium-low heat (the liquid should be bubbling gently, but not boiling) for about 15 minutes. For best results, lift off the foil lid a couple of times, tilt the pan to gather the juices in a corner, scoop the juices up and baste the fish with them.

After 15 minutes, turn off the heat and replace the foil lid. Let cool to room temperature, then transfer to a bowl, cover and store in the refrigerator overnight. This allows the fish to firm up and also absorb the flavors of the braising liquid.

Serve chilled or heated up a bit, with a little of the liquid spooned over, including some of the ginger bits. A little green for garnish is nice too - I used a fresh shiso leaf, but some parsley or even lettuce will do too.

Note: While this has the strong flavors that go so well with rice, I don’t recommend this for bentos (which is why it’s on Just Hungry, not Just Bento!) since you do have to keep it chilled until right before eating. If you want it warm, just heat it up a bit in a pan with the liquids.

More about mackerel

Saba is an ‘oily’ fish, like herring, bluefish, smelt and sardines (or pilchards). It’s packed with good-for-you omega-3 fatty acids and is considered to be sustainable and low in mercury levels too.

Mackerel can be a bit tricky though. It has to be very fresh, and it goes downhill pretty fast. The best way to gauge if a mackerel, or any fish really, is fresh is to look at their faces. Their eyes should be clear and bright, not dried out or bloodshoot like someone after a drunken night out. They should look like this:

The fish counter is also a good gauge of how fresh the fish is. It shouldn’t smell fishy or rank; it should just smell like the sea. Here’s the counter at the poissoniere we bought the mackerel we used from, in the small villege of Damgan on the southern coast of Brittany.

My mother declared their fish to be as of good a quality as any she’s seen in Japan. Coming from her, this is high praise, since she’s über-picky about her fish!

Chilled wintermelon and shrimp soup

maki — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:12:31 +0200

These days, the house generally looks like a warzone because of the packing, and I am not in the mood for involved cooking. So I’m making very simple bentos, and mostly one-dish/one-pot type of things for dinner. A great one-pot meal is soup of course, but it is also summer, when we aren’t always in the mood for a steaming hot bowlful.

The answer is chilled soup that can be made ahead and just taken out at dinnertime. This one is really easy to make too, which is a big plus. Winter melon has a inherently cooling quality according to old (Chinese) medicine, so this is really nice to have on a warm evening.

A bit about wintermelon

The name wintermelon (in Japanese tougan 冬瓜) is a little misleading, because it may seem that it’s a melon that is only in season in winter. It actually ripens in hot weather in temperate zones (it can be grown year round in hotter areas), but the hard, waxy outer skin allows it to be kept in a cool place for a long time, so that it can be eaten in the winter months. I think it’s most suitable for eating in the warm months, because it’s watery and very subtle in flavor, with a crisp texture that is retained even after cooking (though cooking it for a very long time will make it soft).

Winter melon has a pale green, shiny smooth skin, and is quite big. (Be sure it’s smooth skinned - the dark green crinkly ones you may see sold nearby are bitter melon (also called goya, in Japanese nigauri にが瓜) and are treated quite differently.) You see them anywhere from around 10-15 cm / 4-6 inches in diameter on up. If you buy a whole one, you can keep it in a cool cellar until you decide to use it. You can also buy cut portions, which may be a more convenient for a small family or if you don’t want to commit to one huge fruit.

When you cut into it, it looks like this.

The inner part with the seeds is fluffy and inedible (like the innards of a pumpkin, to which it is related), so you need to scoop it out. The skin is really quite tough, so be careful when peeling it.

In Japanese cooking, winter melon is usually cut into bite size squares and parboiled for about 10 minutes in plain water, before being stewed, used in soups, stir-fried, and so on.

Recipe: Chilled wintermelon and shrimp soup

2 cups of parboiled wintermelon cubes
5 cups dashi stock, vegan dashi stock or chicken stock (yes you can use water and granules or a stock cube - I do myself when I’m in a hurry)
1 Tbs. soy sauce
1 Tbs. mirin or sherry
1 Tbs. kurosu (black vinegar) or balsamic vinegar
1 tsp. fresh ginger juice (grate some fresh ginger and squeeze out the juice)
200 g / about 7 oz. fresh shrimp, shelled and deveined
Salt
Green garnish (here I have used edamame and green onion tops from the garden)

If you haven’t already, peel, de-seed and cut up the wintermelon into cubes about 1 inch / 2 cm big. Put them in a pot of water, bring up to a boil and cook for about 10 minutes. Drain.

Put the wintermelon in a pot with the dashi, soy sauce and mirin. Bring up to a boil, then simmer slowly for about 15 minutes.

In the meantime, peel and devein the shrimp, and cup up into chunks (or use small shrimp). Add the shrimp to the soup. Simmer a couple of minutes, and add the ginger juice and vinegar. Taste and add salt if necessary.

Take the pot off the heat, and transfer the contents to a bowl or other refrigerator-appropriate container. Let cool down to room temperature cover tightly with plastic film or a lid and chill until ice cold. (You can put it in the freezer for about 30 minutes before serving to make sure it’s really cold.)

Serve garnished with some edamame, green onions, etc. on top.

The soup keeps in the refrigerator for a couple of days. To make it a complete one-bowl meal, add some cooked and well rinsed somen or soba noodles, a bit more soy sauce, and a lot of green onions on top.

Vegan version

Use a vegetable stock or vegan dashi stock, and blanched (boiling water poured over and drained) tofu cubes instead of the shrimp. You may need to add a bit more soy sauce to compensate for the blandness of the tofu.

Other variations

Try cut up chicken breast instead of the shrimp
Add some cut up tomatoes and a bit more vinegar
Scoop out the wintermelon and shrimp, thicken about 1 cup of the soup with 1-2 Tbs. cornstarch, and pour over as a sauce. This is called ankake.
Gelify the soup with gelatin or agar-agar for an interesting savory jelly