It’s Superbowl Sunday today (Superbowl XLIV I think) and while people like my friend and former boss Wayne are busy gearing up for serious pigskin entertainment in front of a large screen, I’m sitting here (with no chicken wings in sight) writing about sawara no saikyo yaki. Oh yes, that just rolls off the tongue.

Translation: saikyo miso-marinated grilled Spanish mackerel. And as a set meal like you’d find at a typical eatery (with rice, pickles and soup to accompany the sawara).

A little background: saikyo miso (西京味噌) a specific sweet white miso originally made in the Kansai-chihō. It’s pretty versatile in that it can be used for any miso application, but because it has an underlying sweetness and a taste that’s not overly sharp, it can also be applied to things like salad dressing and dipping sauces, or used to offset some of the stronger miso pastes.

This recipe can of course be made using fillets but having the whole fish is so much nicer since the head and bones can be repurposed for several things, like dashi or a nice snack of bone crackers if a deep fryer is available.

Ingredients

• whole Spanish mackerel
• kombu
• salt
• sugar
• rice vinegar
• saikyo miso
• mirin
• sake
• sake lees (optional)
• wakame
• green onions
• fish balls
• variety of tsukemono (Japanese-style pickles)

Fish preparation

Wash the entire fish in cold water, opening the mouth to allow water to flow over the gills. Open the belly and gut the fish and remove the head. Fillet the fish and trim the fillets but do *not* skin the fillets.

I used the daimyo oroshi (straight filleting) technique because I was a little rushed for time, but sanmai oroshi (three piece filleting) also works great. (if you’re presently going “uh?” with the mention of these two techniques, get a copy of Hiromitsu Nozaki’s Japanese Kitchen Knives: Essential Techniques and Recipes). You don’t really need a deba (you need a sharp blade, skill and conviction), but it’s my preferred knife when I’m going medieval on a whole fish.

Regardless of which technique and what knife, you should wind up with two trimmed fillets and one fish skeleton (including the head). One fillet will be processed using the sujime technique to lightly cure with salt and vinegar, the other fillet will be marinated in miso, and the bones and head will be roasted to make soup.

Miso marinade

Miso marinade, or misozuke (味噌漬け) is standard technique in Japanese cooking but is also fairly freeform as what goes into the marinade depends on whim and personal taste. Take three tablespoons of saikyo miso and place into a small mixing bowl. If using sake lees, add one tablespoon. Add 2 parts mirin and 1 part sake to miso and mix so that the marinade has the consistency of a thin paste. The traditional technique would require that this mixture is ground in a mortar and pestle to liberate additional flavors and smooth the consistency, but that’s up to you (the miso available in the west isn’t exactly chunky like the artisanal forms available in Asia).

Spread a thin layer of marinade into the bottom of a non-reactive container. Place a fillet of mackerel skin side down into the marinade. Cover the fish with the remaining marinade and refrigerate overnight.

Sujime cure

Place a fillet skin side down into a non-reactive container (e.g. pyrex dish). Cover the flesh with a little sugar and let stand for 30 minutes. Rinse and dry fillet, then cover the fish with coarse sea salt (or kosher salt) and let sit 45 minutes. Rinse and dry fillet. Make a solution of 75% rice vinegar and 25% water; the amount required is the amount to barely cover the fillet. Cut small slivers of dried kombu into vinegar solution. Pour vinegar solution over fish and let pickle for 20 minutes.

Remove fish from vinegar, blot dry (do not rinse in water), wrap tightly in cling film and refrigerate.

Dashi

Cut the fish head in half so that there is a left side and a right side to the head. Cut the skeleton into smaller pieces about the length of the head. Place pieces (and fins if remaining) onto a wire rack and roast bones until they are browned.

Place a 6×2 cm piece of kombu into a pan with cold water. Heat pan slowly until water is just starting to come to a boil. Hold at this bare simmer for 20 minutes to extract as much of the kombu as possible. Remove kombu and add roasted mackerel bones. Continue to hold pot at bare simmer for 60 minutes. Filter contents through a cheesecloth-lined fine mesh filter or chinois and set aside.

Finishing the components

Remove the sujime-cured fillet from its wrap and place onto a cutting board. Peel the skin away from the fish with your fingers. Trim edges of fillet, and then cut even slices on the bias for sashimi. Set aside slices.

Wipe off the miso cure from the second fillet and place onto a cutting board. Cut into serving pieces (approximately 5-7 cm wide, depending on size of fish). Place onto a wire rack and roast in a pre-heated 230ºC / 450ºF oven until cooked and browned on the edges (approximately 8-10 minutes depending on size of fish and oven).

Soak wakame in a little bit of cold water until rehydrated. Heat dashi and add fish balls when broth is just coming to a simmer. Fully reheat the fish balls, and then add wakame to broth.

Service

Assemble the components of the set meal and serve with steamed rice. It’s supposed to look like this:

• Plate the slices of sujime-cured mackerel and top with minced green onion. Serve with soy sauce and a little wasabi.
• Plate the grilled fish, either alone or with a small vegetable accompaniment.
• Add green onion to the soup and ladle into a bowl.
• Cut and plate the pickles.

Photos

[View with PicLens]

Impressions

I think that the set meal I made was fairly accurate though in terms of size and flavor though not in originality or plating technique. Paying a bit more attention for some of the prep work would have made some of the steps go a bit quicker as there would have been less running around while trying to shoot each step. What I learned from this is that I need a bigger Spanish mackerel, especially if I wanted something to take along for lunch. I had a little one, which is adequate for a typical Japanese set meal portion (which are tiny) but the thinner fillets made the two marinades a bit more of a challenge in timing the marination steps. It is nicer to work with a larger fish, but too large of a fish is conversely not a good thing (and I’m not running a robata-yaki).

I also made a little too much dashi for the set meal, but that wasn’t lost as I wound up using it adn the misozuke to make a supplemental bowl of miso soup to accompany the mountain of leftover rice.

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