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04/16/08 |
                          
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Three-citrus Mahi Mahi Steaks
Yields 4 portions
4 ea. mahi mahi steaks, about 6-8 oz. each 3 ea. blood oranges 1 ea. lemon 1 ea. lime 2 T. mirin 1/4 c. sake lees 1 T. white pepper 1 bn. fresh cilantro, chopped 1 bn. Thai basil, chiffonade KSPTT Cut blood oranges in half, then cut 1/2 in. from two of the centers so you have four thick slices. Squeeze juice from remaining portions into a large bowl. Add mirin, sake lees and juice from lemon and lime. Season to taste. Pour sauce over steaks and allow to marinade for about 30 minutes. During that half hour, get your grill good and hot. We're grillin' these bad boys. When grill is ready, add mahi mahi steaks and blood orange slices. See note for grilling suggestions. On a HOT grill, it'll take about 3 minutes on a side to get a 1-inch thick steak to medium/medium-well. Give your steaks a poke after you've turned them to see how they're doing. Something with about the resistance of the pad of your hand (on your palm near your thumb) is done right. Serve steaks covered with orange slices, garnished with chopped cilantro and basil. Accompany with some fluffy white rice and maybe some savory stir-fried veggies.
Note from GG: First off, I hate this recipe. Not because it's bad, but because I've had the worst time getting it to where I want it. I originally tried to "steam" the steaks between two huge slices of orange, but that didn't work too well because hot grills destroyed the oranges while cold grills didn't cook the fish. I gave that up, but then I realized the marinade wasn't exactly balanced (though the flavour is still very delicate). Finally a talk with Chef Peter at Ray's kind of led me towards using sake lees for the sauce/marinade. What are sake lees? Well, I'll tell ya. Sake lees would be more descriptive if they were called "sake leavin's" as they're the solid remains of a batch of sake. When sake is made, a rice and yeast mixture called "koji" is added to ferment the product. After the sake is fermented, the mixture is pressed through a strainer either by hand or via mechanical means, and the solids left over are called lees. They're perfectly edible, though very hard to get. I read that they're most frequently available around Christmas/New Year's since that's the end of the brewing season (rice is usually harvested in fall). If I can find a retailer or something that sells sake lees, I'll post a link. Since this is a citrus marinade, the fish will "cook" while it's soaking. There's a South American dish called ceviche where really thin slices of fish are just cooked with the acid from lime juice. You know how any cuts on your hand tend to sting when you're juicing lemons? Yeah, that's because lemon juice has a pH down around 2 or 3. Strong stuff, so be careful how long you let it sit. If it sits too long, the fish will start to break down and get mushy. Now then, on to grilling. There are two schools when it comes to grilling. You can either, A) put your product on the grill, flip it, turn it 90 degrees, flip it, turn it 90 degrees, serve it or B) put your product on the grill, turn it 90 degrees, flip it, turn it 90 degrees and serve it. Either way yields nice diamond grill marks, but the proponents of method A claim more even cooking while the proponents of method B claim less overcooking. I'll leave it up to you which way to do it, and if you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line.
This site was last updated 12/20/06 |
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