While the food blog community is sharing some Irish meals, Leprechaun cupcakes, and green food for St. Patrick’s Day this Saturday, I am singing a different tune and my post for today is focused on “seasonal” food. Since the weather keeps changing between warm and cold, sunny and rain, and I’m not sure if we are in winter or spring, I thought this dish might be fun to prepare as it uses ingredients from both the winter and the spring.
Yuzu are grown in winter and Sawara, or Spanish Mackerel, is caught in spring. My blogger friend Robert-Gills from Shizuoka Gormet wrote an article about the fish here if you are curious. As I entered my 2nd year of food blogging, I’m trying to be aware of food ingredients that are in season, although seasonal changes are sometimes hard to experience living in California.
This meal is very easy to prepare – marinate the fish and bake in the oven toaster for 25 minutes. During that time, you have enough time to prepare miso soup, rice, and 1-2 side dishes. I marinated the Spanish mackerel in the classic Japanese seasonings – soy sauce, mirin, and sake – and added yuzu zest. Poached kumquats are optional. They give nice refreshing taste and I like to eat them together with the fish. If you cannot find yuzu in your area, you can replace with lemon and adjust the flavor accordingly. If you enjoy yuzu, I have another recipe using yuzu: Pickled Turnip with Yuzu.
Lastly, I want to share my interview with The Orgasmic Chef. What’s your favorite childhood food? Find out mine HERE!
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- 2 fillets Spanish mackerel (sawara) (1 fillets = 4 oz or 110 g) (rinsed in cold water)
- 1 cup water
- ⅓ cup sugar
- 4 kumquats (kinkan)
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Gather all the ingredients.
- Combine seasonings and yuzu zest in a Ziploc bag and add the mackerel. Marinate the fish for 2-4 hours.
- Preheat toaster oven to 400 F.
- Remove the mackerel from the marinade and cook on a aluminum foil lined baking pan in toaster oven for 20-25 minutes, skin-side up, until it’s nicely browned. You can also broil in a regular oven.
- Serve immediately with the poached kumquats.
- In a small saucepan, bring water and sugar to a boil and boil until sugar is dissolved. Then add kumquats and bring to a boil then turn down the heat to simmer for 5 minutes.
Recipe by Namiko Chen of Just One Cookbook. All images and content on this site are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without my permission. If you’d like to share this recipe on your site, please re-write the recipe in your own words and link to this post as the original source. Thank you.
