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Grilled or Pan-Cooked Albacore With Soy/Mirin Marinade
![Grilled or Pan-Cooked Albacore With Soy/Mirin Marinade](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/04/04/dining/albacore/albacore-articleLarge.jpg?width=1280&quality=75&auto=webp)
- Total Time
- About 45 minutes, after 2 hours' refrigeration
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- ¼cup low-sodium soy sauce
- 2tablespoons mirin (sweet Japanese rice wine)
- 1tablespoon seasoned rice vinegar
- 1tablespoon minced or grated fresh ginger
- 1teaspoon sugar
- 1tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
- 1½pounds albacore steaks
Preparation
- Step 1
Combine the soy sauce, mirin, vinegar, ginger and sugar in a bowl and whisk together well. Whisk in the sesame oil.
- Step 2
Place the albacore steaks in a large bowl or baking dish and toss with the marinade. Cover the bowl, or transfer the fish and marinade to a large zip-top bag and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours, or longer.
- Step 3
Prepare a hot grill, or heat a heavy cast-iron or nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Remove the fish from the marinade. Cook the steaks for 2 to 4 minutes on each side, depending on how well done you like the fish to be. Serve hot.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
I recommend using the marinade as a dipping sauce, instead. It's quite good but, used solely as a marinade, the flavor is muted. The next time I'll be grilling the fish with a light coat of sesame oil, then serving with the dipping sauce on the side.
Delicious. I served with chopped scallions and a serrano pepper condiment I've been using on everything: gently poach serrano peppers in olive oil with a couple cloves of garlic and salt. When the peppers start to brown puree the whole thing. It paired well with the fish and added a little heat.
Excellent recipe! We made just a couple of modifications after reading comments. First, a few minutes before cooking fish, placed marinade in a saucier to thicken it up and kill off any bacteria from raw fish. Spooned sauce on top of fish. Second, chopped some leaf parsley and sprinkled on top of fish with sauce. Really outstanding!
add a dash of wasabi paste!
Apple vinegar also works well ... Adds a nice contrast to the sesame oil.
Hi. Am I right that the dark sesame oil called for here is toasted sesame oil?
I made the marinade using maple syrup instead of sugar and it was good enough to drink! Brushed it on an albacore tenderloin then encrusted with cracked black pepper and sesame seeds, then seared 2 minutes each side. Used as a post marinade after slicing the tenderloin. Delicious. Marinated a coho salmon fillet with the leftovers. Nice.
total winner, i marinated overnight!
I got longer, thinner cuts from Sitka Salmon. I did the following and recommend the following: - I only had about 45 mins for the marinade. Could’ve used a true two hours. - The marinade was a bit bland. I doubled the recipe and pulled some aside for dipping, but added a generous amount honey to it to sweeten it up. Made all the difference. - I used Peanut Oil for the pan, which worked great. - Homestly, coulda used more salt as well. Consider full flavor soy sauce.
I reduced soy a bit, added a bit of fish sauce, also added about 1/2 tsp wasabi powder.
I loved it!
After reading the VERY helpful comments, I did half the fish (it was just the two of us) and still made the sauce as called for in the recipe with a tablespoon or so of wasabi added. Marinated overnight (life happens) and the flavor of the fish was actually quite good on its own, but the extra sauce certainly didn't hurt. Rice, sauteed king oysters, and oven roasted bok choy made it a delicious evening. Thank you to all the helpful commentators; dinner wouldn't have been the same without you:)
Use half of sauce for marinade and reserved other half to pour on fish to serve or to put in dipping bowls at table; cooking marinade after removing fish in order to kill bacteria adds extra work and time. Made full sauce recipe but with 1/4 tsp dark sesame oil not the 1 TBSP called for; the sesame flavor came thru just fine with only a amount; we and the dish would have been overwhelmed by 1 TBSP of sesame oil. Used no-sodium and moderate-sugar mirin, didn't need to add more sugar.
As was suggested five years ago, using the marinade as a dipping sauce worked really well for me. I just brushed the fish with olive oil and lemon and broiled it.
Turned out very tasty! I used a dark soy sauce, which is less salty than light and lent a nice rich flavor. Marinated for about 1.5 hours and didn't find the flavors overpowering. Might add a little chili oil or similar next time!
Found this too salty despite low sodium tamari....but realized the culprit: our Kikkoman mirin is super salty on it's own. I know sometimes "cooking wine" is salted partly so it can be sold as a condiment and not alcohol. I'm going to be sure to buy real mirin next time, not "cooking" mirin.
I was looking for a way to cook sone rock fish I had and came across this recipe. The marinade was outstanding. I followed the advice of another poster and made extra as a sauce for dipping. Made roasted new potatoes and broccoli as a side. Baked marinated rock fish at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes.
Only had one hour to marinate and still came out well. Ginger and soy sauce taste.
I had fresh albacore from the Oregon coast, and served this recipe charcoal grilled with a tomato and shiso leaf salad from the garden (dressed with a little ponzu and rice vinegar) and wasabi mashed potatoes. Great late summer meal for dining al fresco.
Worked out well. I only marinated for half an hour, because that's the time I had, andI started out searing in a skillet, but when I turned it, I let it cook in the rest of the marinade. We like tuna fairly well cooked, not rare, so the liquid kept it tender; I guess I braised it.
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