Pacific black cod (sable) cooked in a broth of sake, rice vinegar, soy sauce and oil, delicious!

Have you ever tried Pacific black cod (aka sable)?

It is a tender and oily fish, sustainably caught, filled with good omega-3 fatty acids and absolutely delicious.

The whole foods in my neighborhood wore it regularly. Here’s a beautifully simple way to prepare it that my friend and angler Hank Shaw taught me.

The fillets are cooked in a Japanese broth of sake, soy sauce, rice vinegar, oil and ginger. While the fillets are cooking, put the slow cooker sauce on the fillets so that the top is also infused with the sauce. The fillets are then garnished with toasted sesame seeds and chopped green onions.

Hank first pollutes his fillets to solidify the meat before cooking. I could go anyway. If you have time, salt the fish (the instructions can be found in the annotations of the recipe), if not, be more careful with the boiled fish, as it is quite delicate.

If you have a preferred method of preparing Pacific Black Cod, please let us know in the comments!

Pacific black cod (sablefish) has long pin bones on the sides of their fillets, which are difficult to remove before the fish is cooked. However, once the fillets are cooked, they can be easily removed with tweezers or needle-nose pliers.
Pacific black cod easily breaks down. If you want your result to close more, salt the fillets in a brine 1/4 cup of salt to 1 liter of water and 2 cups of crushed ice for 20 minutes.

Bar fillets also work with this recipe. However, the bar fillets are thicker, so you need to simmer them for a couple of minutes on both sides until cooked.

Ingredient

• 1 to 1 1/2 pounds black cod fillets, skin on or without skin
• 1/4 cup sake
• 1/4 cup Rice Vinegar
• 1/4 Cup rapeseed, rice bran or other neutral oil
• 2 Tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 Tablespoon chopped fresh ginger
• Black sesame oil, for garnish
• 3 green onions, Thinly sliced diagonally, for garnish
• 1 Tablespoon toasted sesame seeds, for garnish

Method

Sauce:

In a large frying pan, mix sake, rice vinegar, rapeseed oil, soy sauce and ginger. Bring to a boil over medium to medium heat.

Simmer fish in sauce:

Put each fillet in the pan. (If you are using skin fillets, place the fillets in the pan face down on the skin side. Use a spoon to staple the tips of each fillet until you see that the flakes of the fish separate a little, which should take about 30 seconds to 1 minute per fillet.

Simmer the fish for 3-6 minutes, depending on the thickness. Estimate 3 minutes for a 1/4 inch thick mesh, up to 6 minutes for an inch thick mesh.

Carefully move the fish to individual plates. If you wish, use needle-nose pliers (clean) or tweezers to remove the bones from the spindle in the fillets.

Reduce the sauce:

Increase the heat of the sauce and cook vigorously for 1 minute, stirring constantly to reduce the sauce.

Serve:

Put a tablespoon or more of sauce on each fillet and throw the rest. Drizzle each fillet with a little sesame oil and garnish with green onions and toasted sesame seeds.

Serve immediately.