Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Mackerel with Sweet Soy

I've been learning to cook and bake a lot more things in the last couple of months. I'm still a beginner cook and I still panick a bit when i'm trying something new. During this time, Kevin is also learning to take risks and be my guinea pig. I'm sure my friends now know that I like to cook, because I received 2 dictionnary-sized cookbooks for X'mas/birthday. I've already mentioned the one I received from Rachelle for X'mas. The second one I received was from Anh Thu for my Birthday; How to cook Everything by Mark Bittman. I usually like my cookbooks with food porn, but after studying the book a little, this is a pretty impressive cookbook. One fo the things I like is how they give you a recipe and then follow it with variations of the same recipe. This mackerel recipe is an Asian twist to a basic grilled mackerel in the book.


4 Mackerel Fillet or any fish Fillet
1 tsp Sesame Oil
1/4 soy sauce
1 tbs minced garlic
1/4 scallion, minced
1 tsp garlic, minced
1 tbs white wine or water
1 tbs honey or sugar


  1. Mix all ingrdients, except fish. Marinate the fish for 5 minutes or more.
  2. Cook in a skillet for 5-10 minutes on medium-high heat or until fish is cooked. The sauce will reduce and caramelize.
  3. Serve with white rice.

I think the brand of soy sauce i have is way too salty for the measurements given in this recipe. My mackerel dish ended up being too salty, but I could really see the potential of the recipe if only I had tasted my sauce before reducing it to a glaze, which probably enhanced the saltiness. Next time i'll cut the soy sauce in half and dilute with water and/or add more sugar/honey. I love mackerel, so i'd definitely try this recipe again. This took no time to cook. When I was done with the fish, my rice cooker was still working hard at cooking our rice.

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