Tetsuya's Marinated Trevally

Author: JayPenfold

Category: Fish recipes

Created on Saturday, 19 November 2011 14:59

Written by Jay Penfold

With the passing of each season, my appetite for certain dishes changes. With Summer incoming and a number of tropical species rampaging around my backwater, the air hot, heavy, humid, I curse having to be behind a stove at all. The freshness of the fish I've been capturing, the meticulous way I've been handling them, has led me to believe that they don't need any cooking at all, not in a conventional way at least. I have been experimenting with ceviche for some time with great success, yet felt a need to take this "cooking but not cooking' concept further. I am greatly inspired by legendary chef Tetsuya. I've fallen in love with the simplicity, delicacy and balance of the dishes that have the Japanese sensibility, respect for the produce from the soil or sea upwards.

The learning curve is steep, yet one must start somewhere. So here's my entry to the steep curve. The secret to making this dish work is balancing all of the ingredients. Taste the marinade, make sure it has all the right play between the salty, the sharp, the sweet, the hot. Ensure everything that enters this dish is the absolute best you can afford, the freshest, the cleanest, the brightest. The dish it's self is not difficult, yet stunning, healthy and delicious once put together. This is intended to feed four people as part of a degustation menu. Quantities could easily be increased to make an entree' or even a main. The dish is quite rich and would ideally be a smaller serve. 

Serves 4 as a degustation course

1 x 200gm Trevalley fillet, skinned and boned, bloodlines removed then finely julienne.

1 x teaspoon lemon zest

1/2 x tablespoon of lemon zest

1/2 x tablespoon finely chopped parsley

1/2 x tablespoon finelychopped chives

1 x teaspoon mirin

1/2 x teaspoon finely grated ginger

2 x teaspoons white sesame oil.

splash of soy sauce white pepper to taste

Method: Combine all ingredients in a bowl and marinate at room temperature for fifteen minutes, then pile high onto an appropriate plate. I have used scallop shells, but a small white saucer is fine. Remember this dish is ideally eaten with chopsticks and makes only four mouthfuls each.

Notes on ingredients: don't substitute cheap vegetable oil for the white sesame, olive oil is also too heavy, canola just tastes like machine oil. Try to get salt reduced soy sauce, this dish doesn't need salt beyond the natural salty flavour of the fish. Take the sharpest knife you have, then sharpen it again to slice the fish into very fine ribbons. Don't 'saw' through the fillet, let the knife tip under pressure against the chopping board do the work.