Aug 11 spaghetti with spicy tomato sauce with thai chilis
Aug 12 Dinner out with friends
Aug 13 Orange Teriyaki Hailbut with scallion noodles
Last week I made teriyaki salmon using a recipe I found on Life is Great and we both liked it a lot but I can't make that one again and Little Shack wanted teriyaki. There was a recipe for scallion noodles that she made to go with the fish that I couldn't stop thinking about so we made those but had to look for a different sauce recipe. Clearly, the Kid and I are all asian, all the time right now and that suits both of us just fine. I had really lost my cooking mojo there for a while but I realize I am cooking the way I did before I started living with Shack and all of these dishes and ingredients are coming back to inspire me. I feel badly that the BBQ is just not being used but at least we have moved beyond crying jags in the kitchen at 6pm. Things are looking up.
This time I am using a classic teriyaki recipe from The Japanese Kitchen , a book that I often use as a reference for basic japanese techniques and ingredients and stuff. I subbed in half of the mirin with fresh squeezed orange juice and added some rind because I wanted to. It's just that easy folks.
I loved this sauce. It was a bit less intense than the teriyaki sauce I made last week but I was okay with that. It didn't call for boiling down and so it didn't get as thick and I was okay with that too and I could see this one becoming my go to, standard teriyaki.
When I made the salmon last week, I didn't brine it but because the halibut is not as oily and has a milder flavour, I used the brine from Life is Great and I think that was a good idea. In the end, The Kid preferred it with the salmon and I think he was right - I love halibut but it's not quite oily enough to stand up to the teriyaki and I think there are better ways to use this fish. Don't get me wrong, it was good but we both preferred it with the salmon.
You know, I had such high hopes for the noodles but we both found them kind of really oily without much flavour pay off. We used to eat an scallion/ginger/oil condiment all the time - it was a staple in chinese restaurants and I loved it and was assuming that this recipe was going to taste like that but it didn't. We both found it just kind of oily and bland. I am going to have to investigate this one because now I have that taste in my noggin and I won't rest until I eat what I am tasting up there.
Halibut with Orange Teriyaki Sauce
serves 2
1 lb halibut fillet, skin on, cut into two pieces
brine for the fish
orange teriyaki sauce
Orange Teriyaki Sauce
adapted from The Japanese Kitchen
1/4 cup mirin
1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
1/4 cup sake
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tbls sugar
the zest of half a small orange removed with a vegetable peeler
In a small saucepan, heat the mirin, the orange juice, the rind and the sake over med heat until it comes to a simmer, about 5 minutes. Add the soy sauce and the sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Lower the heat until it's barely simmering and cook for about 25 mintues before removing from the heat to let it cool. It keeps in the fridge for up to a week.
Cut a 1 lb halibut filet in half or two filets, skin on
brine: from Life is Great
1/2 cup water
2 tbls soy sauce
2 tbls sugar
2 tbls mirin
Combine the water, soy sauce, brown sugar and mirin in large Ziploc bag and add in the fish. Press out as much air as you can and seal the bag. Let this sit in the fridge for at least an hour.
When it's time to cook the fish, heat a heavy pan with about a tbls of oil over med high heat and preheat the broiler. Line a baking tray with tinfoil and set a rack of some sort over it and set aside.
Remove the fish from the brine and put it, skin side down, in the hot pan. Cook for a few minutes until the skin looks nice and crispy and browned. Turn the fish over and let it cook on the other side for a couple of minutes. Remove the fish from the pan and place it, skin side down, on the rack in the baking tray, skin side down. Spoon some teriyaki sauce over the fish and put it under the broiler for about five minutes. I kept adding another drizzle of sauce every minute or minute and a half. I had to put the pan on the second level from the top because the fish was very thick but get it as close to the elements as you can with the elements touching the top of the fish.
Remove the fish from the oven, put the noodles down on a shallow dish, top with the fish, skin side down and if you want, drizzle even more teriyaki sauce over the fish.
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