KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 8 — One of my favourite Japanese dishes is saba shioyaki or grilled mackerel. There is an exquisite simplicity to this dish — the oily mackerel (saba in Japanese) seasoned only with salt (shio) and then grilled (yaki).
At Japanese restaurants, we’d typically have this with a mound of grated daikon radish and a wedge of lemon. Minimalist cuisine at its best.
Best with a bowl of hot steamed white rice and a bowl of equally hot miso soup. It is pretty standard and traditional fare for a reason; it works beautifully.
Yet when I am having this at home, I can’t help but crave for some changes, if only to jazz things up a little. Rather than tweak the main dish (it’s perfect as it is, really), another way to savour saba shioyaki is to enjoy it with different starches.
Rather than steamed rice, why not try some roast vegetables? The combination might sound strange but I can assure the proof is in the pudding… or roast vegetables as it were.
To bind everything together, consider a dipping sauce made from oyster sauce, honey… and the requisite squeeze of lemon juice. Trust me, the latter works wonders with both the fish and vegetables so don’t leave it out!
GRILLED MACKEREL WITH ROAST VEGETABLES & HONEY-LEMON-OYSTER SAUCE
Mackerel can be easily found at the supermarket, either fresh or frozen. While the version served at some Japanese restaurants is the whole fish, I find saba fillets to be easier to cook as the size is more uniform.
Given that mackerel is an oily fish, you might notice a somewhat strong fishy smell. Seasoning with salt will help get rid of this odour (not necessarily a bad thing, given the fishy oils are also higher in healthy omega-3 fatty acids).
Fillets of mackerel (or ‘saba’ in Japanese).
We will rest the fish for 20 minutes after sprinkling it with salt. This also helps firm up the flesh of the mackerel fillets as the salt will extract water from the fish.
For the vegetables, you can opt for different hardy root vegetables that you prefer or have handy in the pantry. For this recipe, I am using yellow sweet potatoes (which is sweeter than the purple or orange variety) as well as pumpkin.
Whatever you decide on, make sure to employ a coarse cut. This way each piece of sweet potato and pumpkin is roughly the same size, which ensures even cooking.
Sweet potatoes.
The lemon, as mentioned earlier, is absolutely necessary. It is traditional to squeeze some lemon juice over the grilled mackerel before eating.
Here we also use some lemon juice to dilute and enhance the aroma of our dipping sauce, made from a mix of honey and oyster sauce.
Ingredients
4 fillets of mackerel (saba)
1 teaspoon of salt
½ pumpkin, chopped
4-6 medium purple sweet potatoes, chopped
Olive oil
1 teaspoon dried mixed herbs
More salt (to season the vegetables)
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons runny honey
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 lemon, cut into halves
Pumpkin.
Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Pat the fillets of mackerel dry with paper towels. Sprinkle the fillets with salt; turn the fillets over and salt the other side too.
Allow the salted fillets to rest on a tray for 20 minutes.
While the mackerel is resting, coarsely chop the sweet potatoes and pumpkin. Transfer the cut pieces to a large baking tray.
Drizzle enough olive oil to coat and sprinkle with dried mixed herbs. Season to taste with salt and black pepper. Place the tray of vegetables at the lower section of the oven.
Any drippings from the grilled mackerel will season the roasted vegetables.
After 20 minutes, use fresh paper towels to pat the fillets dry again as the salt would have drawn more moisture out from the fish.
Place the fillets on an oven grill and place on the upper section of the oven (for grilling). Any drippings from the fish (their oils are full of flavour) will fall down to the roasting vegetables and further season them.
Allow the fillets to grill for 20 minutes, until the skin is crispy and the flesh has started to get some nice browning.
While the fish and vegetables are cooking in the oven, combine the honey, oyster sauce and juice of half a lemon in a bowl. Mix well. Set this dipping sauce aside.
Squeeze some lemon juice into your honey and oyster sauce mixture.
Once the grilled mackerel and roasted vegetables have finished cooking, remove from the oven. Serve with the dipping sauce and half a lemon for finishing with freshly squeezed juice.
