Men’s sheds, Ponzu & Big fish

Amazing how receptive the brain is first thing in the morning, fuzzy sure, but everything seems to sink in better at 5am. Those first waking minutes today, listening to the Saturday fishing program, Big fish, on ABC has me thinking about aquatic life, the sea and men’s business all day, to the point that I’ve just gotta have a nice fillet or cutlet for tea tonight and I have an uncanny need to build a dingy.

The show tends to be just a tad repetitive, each week they cross to the experts up and down the coast, who are no doubt catching ‘flatties’ in the bay or ‘kingies’ off the point, maybe, and I’m now making this up for effect, get into a school of ‘coddies’ off the shelf.

I love the show, the brusqueness of the fisherman “yeh, na….no worries….” they, who are surprisingly mostly males, have a laid back, cheerful, uncomplicated feel about them, not a care in the world even if the trouties aren’t biting. Surely this is an activity we are meant to be doing, not necessarily reefing half dead fish out of the sea, more doing an activity that is calming, serine, a way of quietly reflecting on life. I imagine that these type of people don’t need therapy, intervention or membership to a men’s shed.

I’m not trying to make a mockery of this new genre of things men need to do to get through the week, meet in a non threatening environment and build a park bench. I am lucky enough to have a job that is working, living the dream, in a huge shed each week making wine so maybe I can’t see the need, mind you I could use a hand tidying my own shed, is that the same thing?

Back to angling and my need for slab of fish for tea. Looking around at a few fish shops it’s hard to make the connection from a fine, line caught kingfish – that spent its last moments gracefully leaping out of the ocean in an age old contest between man and beast, granted the man is armed with a highly engineered rod and reel and the fish just has it wits – with what’s on offer. Looking at the trays and trays of uniform fillets that have no doubt come from farms and have recently thawed out, my morning yearning fads somewhat.

Not until I get to the Belconnen markets that I see fish that look like they should, ie whole. Not that farmed or frozen fish is solely a product of mall based fish mongers, I just know here that I will have more chance of finding something different or at least cut off the bone in front of me.

The fish that I crave the most, one that we used to have on our daily menu down in Tasmania is the so called blue-eyed cod. A more correct term would be blue-eye trevalla, I could be wrong here, I know, crazy talk, I’m never wrong, but this isn’t a cod at all, just a big, deep sea fish that can be mistaken for a cod. So let’s call this just blue-eye, great fish, probably farmed now, so they’ll never be as good as one that’s been pulled out of the cold sea where they grow so slowly but it’s probably more sustainable.

You’ve got to get there early enough before they cut them up, it’s seems common here to cut the upper part of the fish into cutlets, what you want is a nice plump pair of fillets from the thickest section of the fish, not the tail, tell them to leave the skin on too.

Once home you need to do two things, firstly pull out any bones and then give the fish a quick salting. It makes sense that they spend their lives in salt water so this would be an environment that has the flesh in a state of balance. On average sea water has 3.5g salt per 100ml, so make up a brine that reflects this with sea salt flakes and give the fish an hour or so. Have a bamboo steamer over simmering water ready and hot before you put the fish in to steam.

A word on the sauce here, ponzu is a Japanese citrus dipping sauce, if you can find yuzu, a citrus fruit that comes from China, Japan and Korea, much like lemon, grapefruit or even madarine, it’s quite tart and very high in vitamin C. Funnily enough at the winery we have this old citrus that grows beside the shed, looks like lime, only yellow skinned, I reckon this is yuzu and is probably the rootstock growing rather than the planned lime. It works anyway, use any of the mentioned citrus or a blend of all.

The other main ingredient in ponzu is dashi, this is a Japanese seasoning stock based on kelp (Kombu) and dried bonito (katsu bushi, also available as a ground preparation), both are available from Japanese grocers. Easy to make, for a cup, just soak a piece of kombu (5cm square) in a cup of water, bring to the point of simmering, turn off and add 2 tbsp bonito flakes or powder steep for 10 minutes. Strain and keep in the fridge.

This is a quick and fairly easy preparation, just some subtle Asian flavorings to help, I’d be looking at a bottle of Riesling seriously to go with all these flavours and tastes, maybe something with a bit of age, soft and gentle, which will balance the yang of the sauce’s umami seasoning.

Now, men, we are meeting at my Murrumbateman men’s shed next Thursday and first we are attacking the tool shed, a decent bench should set the scene, give me a holla once your done.

 Steamed blue-eye with pickled vegetable noodles and ponzu

2 250g plump fillets of blue-eye, skin on (or use another big fish)
200g brine (35% salt)
Oils on hand: grapeseed and sesame

Vegetables: a mixture of cucumber, daikon, carrot and wombok (Asian cabbage)
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salt flakes
Steamed sushi rice

Garnish, toasted sesame seeds, chopped spring onions

Ponzu dressing
60ml light soy sauce
40ml citrus juice (see above)
5ml rice wine vinegar
10ml mirin
60ml dashi
Pinch of minced ginger

Mix together

First prepare the vegetables, cut them all into a long julienne, you can get little hand shredders that do this, use about the same quantities of each vegetable. In a bowl season with sugar and salt and leave for 20 minutes, drain off any collected brine. Steam the fish for 8-10 minutes over barely simmering water, once almost ready heat a pan with a splash of both oils until it just starts to smoke. On a plate, have the fish skin side up, scatter spring onions and pour over the sizzling oil, this sears in the flavour a slightly crispens the skin, serve on a bed of vegetables, rice and dressing on the side, sprinkle all with sesame seed and extra spring onion.