A traditional and scrumptious dish from Venice is pesce in saôr, which doesn’t imply ‘bitter’ fish however ‘flavored’ fish (saôr comes from ‘sapore’). The recipe was invented in Venice as a method to protect fish, and despite the fact that we’ve got fridges these days we nonetheless make it as a result of it’s so tasty!
Within the conventional recipe, white fish is dredged in flour, fried in oil, after which marinated in sautéed onions with white wine, vinegar, raisins, pine nuts, and cinnamon. I posted a lighter model with mackerel cooked sous vide 10 years in the past in this put up. Once you use white fish, the delicate taste of the fish will probably be overpowered by the marinade. Mackerel has a pleasant however stronger style you can nonetheless style. The creaminess of the mackerel goes nicely with the candy & bitter marinade.
Now I’ve developed a better technique with out utilizing sous vide, that provides nearly the identical consequence: cook dinner the mackerel within the residual warmth of the marinade, moderately than cooking the mackerel sous vide after which placing it in a chilly marinade. The one different change I’ve made to my recipe from 10 years in the past is that I’ve diminished the quantity of vinegar, and improved the plating.
Components
For 4 servings
- Fillets of two contemporary mackerels, about 400 grams (0.9 lbs) [Ask your fishmonger to fillet the mackerel and to remove the skin.]
- 2 giant onions, halved and sliced
- 300 ml (1 1/4 cup) dry white wine
- 80 ml (1/3 cup) good high quality white wine vinegar
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 40 grams (4 Tbsp) white raisins
- 20 grams (2 Tbsp) pine nuts
- 1 bay leaf
- 1/4 tsp floor cinnamon
- salt and freshly floor white pepper
- 1 Tbsp minced contemporary flat leaf parsley
Directions
Season the mackerel with salt on either side.
Then cowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate when you put together the marinade. Salting the mackerel earlier than will permit the salt to penetrate into the fish, which can enhance each taste and texture.
Warmth 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan. The frying pan ought to have the proper dimension for the mackerel fillets in a single layer. Add 2 sliced onions and season with salt. The salt will draw out some liquid, serving to to melt the onions.
Stir the onions over medium warmth till they’re mushy and golden. They need to not stay crunchy and shouldn’t develop into crispy or brown. It will take about half an hour and common stirring (doesn’t need to be continuously, however at the very least each couple of minutes).
Within the meantime, toast 20 grams of pine nuts within the oven for about 8 minutes at 180C/350F. You can too toast them in a dry frying pan, however that takes fixed stirring to toast them evenly.
When the onions are mushy and golden, deglaze with 300 ml dry white wine.
Convey the wine to a boil, and add a bay leaf, the pine nuts, and 40 grams of white raisins.
Add 1/4 teaspoon floor cinnamon…
…and 80 ml white wine vinegar.
Simmer the marinade…
…till the liquid has been diminished by half.
Within the meantime, take away the central bones from the mackerel, by reducing alongside the bones on either side. You’ll find yourself with skinny strips of flesh with bones in them, which you discard.
When the marinade is completed, flip off the warmth and switch the contents of the pan to a bowl (I used a big glass measuring cup). Organize the mackerel in a single layer on the underside of the pan, which remains to be heat.
Pour the recent marinade over the fish.
Distribute the onions, such that the entire fish is roofed. Press down on the fish with a spatula as wanted to submerge it as a lot as attainable. Permit the residual warmth of the marinade to cook dinner the fish.
After 3-4 minutes, flip the fish round to verify it’s cooked evenly. It isn’t an issue if the fish breaks up into giant items, as you’ll have to break it up within the subsequent step anyway.
Subsequent permit the fish to chill to room temperature, uncovered, after which cowl it up and refrigerate it to chill fully.
About half an hour earlier than serving, take the fish out of the fridge and plate it. Place a steel meals ring with a diameter of 8 centimeters (3 inches) on every plate. Break the fish up into chunks and divide them equally among the many rings, urgent down with a spoon to flatten the layer of fish inside every ring. Discard the bay leaf.
Subsequent, spoon the marinade on high of the fish, together with the entire liquid.
And eventually, sprinkle with the parsley.
Carry the plates to the desk with the rings, then take away the rings.
Wine pairing
The dish is barely candy from the raisins, as good acidity from the vinegar, and the mackerel is creamy. We loved it with an oak-aged Pinot Gris from the Netherlands (Apostelhoeve), that has increased acidity than Pinot Gris normally has. A extra simply obtainable selection could be a German Riesling that may be very barely off dry (however nonetheless ‘Trocken’) and creamy, so a dry Spätlese or Auslese.
