Todoli Young Kingfish Citrus

At the end of March 2020, as Europe was closing down, I managed to ‘swing by’ the Todoli Foundation for 2 days for an impromptu cooking. True to form a bounty of seasonal citrus, local fish and Japanese ingredients brought back from Kyoto were enough to get the creativity flowing and create two lunches . We cooked an array of Japanese classic dishes like: dashe with freshly dug mooli, konbu and tiny local prawns, donburi with certified blue fin tuna and a cured mackerel and DIY fresh uni hand rolls,. We also had gorgeous Spanish kingfish being too delicate to fillet for sashimi and not quite yielding enough for a group of 10 for lunch. But perfectly matched with freshly picked lime leaves, a very sweet variety of mini grapefruit and the last of the sudachi this Kingfish was detined for roasting.

This is the simple tested method of scoring the fish for flavours to penetrate the the flesh, marinate for a few hours and then grilling or roasting in the oven for tender juicy fish pieces eaten of the bone.

Recipes for 2 medium fish, either as a main course for 4 or part of tapas style dishes for up to 8 people.

2 young king fish or 2 large whole mackerel

10 lime leaves

4 sudachi (or limes)

2 small red onion

2 spring onions

2 cloves garlic

4 piece centimetres fresh ginger

3 tablespoon soy sauce

2 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon. sesame oil

Citrus to decorate, here in recipe a variety of small grapefruit, but would work very well with blood oranges, fresh yuzu or lime

300 grans round grain rice

Dash of quality extra virgin olive oil to dress the fish, here of course Tot Oil

Gut and clean the fish. carefully dry with a piece of kitchen towel inside and out. Score the fish in a zig zag formation on either side about 2 centimetres apart.

Peel ginger and slice thinly. Peel red onion, spring onions and garlic, Cut red onion in half and then slice thinly on its length, cut spring onions on the diagonal in 3 centimetres pieces and slice garlic thinly. Peel the sudachi (if using a firmer kind of citrus use a zester), cut the zest into buttons julienne style and then the roughly chop the sudachi flesh. Chop the lime leaves into thin strips.

Mix all the ingredients with olive oil, sesame oil and soy sauce, then rub the fish both sides in marinate allowing all the flavours to perpetrate the flesh. Leave fish to marinate in the fridge for 1 hour.

Wash the rice, see recipe here, then rest and cook when placing the fish in the oven.

Preheat the oven on 180 degrees C (or 170 for a fan oven). When fish is ready lift out of marinade, pour marinade into a roasting tin and place fish on top, cook for 10 minutes and then turn to cook for a further 8 minutes. Finish fish for a few minutes on the grill setting to crisp up the skin.

When rice is ready place on a serving platter and then ad to the roasted yellow rail on top, use the left over in the base of the pan to spoon over the fish. Now drizzle lusciously with Tot Oil and season with flaky sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Garnish with wedges of small sweet grapefruit as seen in the picture.