Teriyaki is a Japanese style of cooking where fish (or meat) is brushed with a sweet soy marinade and grilled. There are good commercial teriyaki sauces and marinades available, but it’s also quick and easy to make your own.
INGREDIENTS:
2 medium eggplants, quartered lengthways and cut into 1cm-thick slices
6 large flat mushrooms, stems discarded, cut into sixths
3 small red onions, quartered with root end left intact
¼ cup sesame seeds
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
6 x 180g Striped Marlin steaks, skin off, trimmed of any bloodline (see notes)
½ cup vegetable oil
3 green onions, finely sliced lengthways
Teriyaki Marinade
½ cup light soy sauce
⅓ cup mirin (see notes)
1 teaspoon castor sugar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon grated ginger
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
METHOD:
Make Teriyaki Marinade: combine ingredients and stir well until sugar dissolves.
Place eggplant, mushroom and onion in a shallow tray and pour Teriyaki Marinade over them. Turn to coat, then leave to marinate for 30 minutes.
Combine sesame seeds with cayenne pepper. Brush fish with oil and roll it in the sesame seed mixture to lightly coat both sides, cover and set aside.
Heat a barbecue or char-grill plate.
Brush barbecue with oil. Arrange eggplant, mushrooms and onion on the plate and cook, basting occasionally with the marinade, until they’re well coloured and softening. Place steaks on the grill and cook for a few minutes each side, depending on thickness, they should still be just pink in the centre.
Divide the vegetables between plates, top with steaks and garnish with green onions.
NOTES:
Mirin is a sweet Japanese fortified rice wine used for cooking. True mirin (labelled ‘hon mirin’) contains alcohol, so what is available in supermarkets and Asian grocery stores, and normally used, is non-alcoholic ‘mirin seasoning’.
ALTERNATIVE SPECIES:
Albacore, Bonito, Mackerel, Swordfish, Tuna.