Sanma Kabayaki Recipe Japanese Style Broiled Pacific Saury Fish in Sweet Soy Sauce

Sanma Kabayaki Recipe: Grilled Pacific Saury or Pike Mackarel with Sweetened Soy Sauce

Sanma Kabayaki Recipe i quite easy to follow in your kitchen.  Sanma is a Japanese name of pike mackerel or pacific saury fish, while   Kabayaki is a sweetened soy sauce mixture that usually use for grilling unagi or Japanese freshwater eel. Sanma kabayaki is a preparation of grilled sanma fish that splited down in the the back or in the belly, gutted and boned, butterflied, filletted, skewered, dipped in the kabayaki sauce before being broiled on a grilled. Sanma kabayaki is a very special seasonal dish, but thanks God there’s such a frozen section in supermarket that save the vaccum packed frozen sanma fish through all the years. Sanma fish is rich in unsaturated fatty acids such as EPA and DHA, a “good fats” that clinically proven to prevent  heart an coronary disease. Nutritional fact in 100 gr Sanma (dry heat cooked, grilled/baked) contains 1400 mg DHA, while in the same amount of grilled farmed atlantic salmon contains about 1500 mg DHA. Sanma is the best option for baby food for brain and nerve tissues development. Sanma fish  it’s much more cheaper than regular salmon while the DHA is slighly lower than the salmon. Sanma fish is a very good choice for feeding the adolesences and toddlers.

Japanese Style Grilled Sanma Kabayaki

Homemade Kabayaki Sauce is usually contain 3 parts light soy sauce, 1 part mirin, 1 part sake, and  2 parts white caster sugar by volume. This is the basic kabayaki sauce recipe and the ratio used to be different for each licking, beside, whole cloves garlic, cinnamon, star anise and sliced ginger added when the kabayaki sauce is simmerred until thickened into half amount. You can purchased a quite pricey ready to use store brought kabayaki sauce that usually using molases instead of sugar  as a swetened agent, this made the store brought kabayaki sauce is not easily burn during the grilling process. That’s why it’s better be using molases on kabayaki sauce instead of sugar. Kabayaki sauce is not only suits for grilling fish, but also for chicken fillet, shrimp or squid.

Homemade Sanma Kabayaki Recipe

Homemade sanma kabayaki recipe usually refers to a braised sanma in kabayaki-style soy sauce instead of broiled or grilled. The Sanma fillet is dipped in a cornstarch flour and then pan fried until the outside got a nice golden brown and crusted layer. Right after the pan is cleaned from the rest of the pan frying, the kabayaki style soy sauce is boiled and then the fried sanma fillet is dipped into the sauce and then simmerred until the sauce is thicken. Braised sanma kabayaki losen the smokey flavour, a keys of enjoying a delicious fatty sanma fish. The sauce is usually too thicken for my licking, it’s due to the dissolved corn starch for pan frying the sanma fillet in the kabayaki sauce. That’s why i choose the oven broiled sanma kabayaki or oven grilled sanma kabayaki, i love it even more if the barbeque charcoal grill is available, unfortunately the  densely populated area surrounded my sister’s residence in Jakarta won’t made it possible to make  smoke without a complain.

Oven Broiled Sanma Kabayaki Recipe

Grilling sanma kabayaki should not be rushed, take your time, brush as often as you like with the sauce, but since i use oven to broil the sanma kabayaki, i applied the sauce twice for every  5 minutes. I like to do it several times on the flesh side to make sure the skin is nice and crispy and plenty of the fat has rendered off if i using the berbeque grill. Just before serving,  glaze the flesh with the sauce as a final lacquering before cutting into bite sized pieces. That’s it, i told you it was easy. Just serve over a mound of tender Japanese rice and drizzled it with remaing kabayaki sauce over it. Some fancy Japanese restaurant even used to served the grillled sanma kabayaki with a tiny  charcoal grill pot in your table to make you easy to slightly heated it before you pop it into your mouth. I love sanma fish all the way, i like to Grilled Sanma Fish in Banana Leaf and served it with Spicy Chili & Miso Sauce.

Sanma Kabayaki Recipe

Sanma Kabayaki Recipe:

• 2 large Sanma or Pacific Saury Fish, gutted, cleaned, patted dry, set aside
  
• 1 tbsp lime juice
• salt and pepper to taste
• 4 tbsp kabayaki sauce and more for glazing the grilled fish

How to Make Sanma Kabayaki:

• Cut open the sanma fish stomach and take out the guts

Gutted Sanma Fish

• Wash the sanma fish under a cold  running water, rub  and clean the reddish black part in the center of the cavity  below the back bone
• Season the fish skin with salt, lime juice and pepper, set aside and marinade for about 15 minutes in the fridge
• Pat dry the excess moisture using kitchen paper
• Butterfly the fish from the belly and revove the pin bones with clean tweezer or pliers, you can see the instruction how to butterfly the roundfish from the belly side

Butterflied Sanma Fish Fillet

• Apply about 2 tbsp or homemade kabayaki sauce for each flesh side of the butterflied sanma fish

Oven Broiled Sanma Kabayaki

• Broil the sanma kabayaki in 180°C preheated oven for about 15-20 minutes until the kabayaki sauce is caramelised and the fish is cooked through
• Apply more kabayaki sauce  in the sanma meat side twice during the broiling process
• Cut the sanma kabayaki and serve it over hot steaming rice, drizzle the sanma kabayaki with sauce before serving.

Homemade Kabayaki Sauce Recipe:

• 30 ml light soy sauce
• 10 ml mirin
• 10 ml sake
• 20 ml molases or sugar (i’m using palm sugar)

How to Make Kabayaki Sauce :

• Mix all sauce ingredients in a heavy bottom non stick sauce pan, bring it to boil
• Simmer the kabayaki sauce over low heat until thicken into half

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