Hot Smoked Mackerel Pike Fish (Sanma or Pacific Saury Fish) with Japanese Sansho Peppercorn

Hot Smoked Mackerel Pike with Sansho Peppercorn Seasoning.Very fresh mackerel pike fish or sanma or pacific saury fish butterflied from the belly side, cured with Japanese sansho pepper then hot smoked grill using indirect smoke heat from charcoal grill. Simple method bring a cheap fish into the next level of taste.

Mackerel Pike or Sanma (Pacific Saury) is a poor man’s salmon fish, simply because it’s delicious, loaded with nutritional value and also cheap. One serving of mackerel pike or sanma (100 gr) cooked in dry heat cooking like  grilled or baked contains 1400 mg DHA, while in the same amount (100 gr) of grilled farmed atlantic salmon contains about 1500 mg DHA, So the  nutritional amino acid od sanma fish is slighly lower than salmon fish, what a great deal!!! Sanma fish 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.

Making hot smoked mackerel pike fish is begin with the selection of the fish first; make sure  you choose the the fresh fish as possible. Check the fish is smells fresh, the gills is still dark red, the eyes is clear and the meat texture is bouchy (bounch back when you gently pressed it with fingers), if one of this criteria jeopredized, throw it away because it’s not good for you. Any kind of fish suitable for this hot smoking recipe, so be experimental about it and feel free using your local fish product.

Mackerel Pike is quite bony fish, so i guess it’s better be deboned before hot smoked. To filet or remove any bones from the mackerel fish, first you made insicion in the middle of the belly, remove the innard. Carefully cut the mackerel back bone from the middle of the viscera, as close as possible to the bone to save the meat then cut away the backbone and left the tail behind for presentation. You can see the instruction how to butterfly the roundfish from the belly side

The ribs bone and some of the tiny bones in the middle of the mackerel pike fish filet can be removed with plier. I like my smoked mackerel fish fillet attached with it’s tail and head because hot smoking made it crisp and delicious. Do not throw away the backbone because you can seasoned it then Deep Fried Fish Back Bone and have your extra little snack.

I love smokey flavour, one of the comforting zone for me. Smoked mackerel is one of the oldest way to preserved extra harvest in the season. A number of wood smoke compounds act as preservatives. Phenol and other phenolic compounds in wood smoke are both antioxidants alongside other formaldehyde, acetic acid, and other organic acids,, which slow rancidification of animal fats, and antimicrobials, which slow bacterial growth.

Making hot smoked fish is easy, after you clean and debones the fish fillet, seasonen and cured then dry the surface, now  you need to inisiate the fire first and let the block of dry wood turned into charcoal first.  Never let the fire had any contact with the meat you want to hot smoked, not grilled or barbequed the fish so you should keep enough distance beetween the fish fillet with the firing wood.

You want to hot smoked fish, so keep the distance beetween the fire and smoking agent to the metal rack for hanging the mackerel fish. Once the wood turend into red charcoal, you can put it in the smoking chamber or a simple grill  like me.  Put the mackerel fish fillet in a metal net with at least 25 inches from the charcoal, you want the smoke that cooked the mackerel fish, not the direct heat from the charcoal.

Now we smoking the mackerel fish fillet, once your charcoal is ready and nicely firing out, now let’s begin  to make the smoke, shall we ??? After the charcoal is firing out, you need to put smoke agent like soaked wood chips over the charcoal to let the smoke start generated. The other method to generate smoke is using fresh green leaves by laying it over the charcoal and let the smoke coming by to cooked the mackerel fish.

Hot smoking fish process is between 165 and 185 Fahrenheit (73-85C) and this temperature is definitely cooked the fish. Hot smoking exposes the foods to smoke and heat in a controlled environment. Although mackerel fish that have been hot smoked are often reheated or cooked, they are typically safe to eat without further cooking. Within this temperature range, fish are fully cooked, moist, and flavorful, if you let the temperature raised more than 185 °F (85 °C), the smoked fish will shrink excessively, buckle or even burned.

 Hot Smoked Mackerel Pike Fish (Sanma) Recipe:

• 2 large Mackerel Pike Fish, Sanma or Pacific Saury Fish, gutted, cleaned, patted dry, set aside
  
• Curing for Mackerel Pike Fish : salt, sugar, white pepper & sansho peppercorn powder
• wood block, for making charcoal (you can use charcoal )
• woodchips, soaked in water for 10 minutes for generate the smoke

How to Make Hot Smoked Mackerel Pike Fish (Sanma):

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

• 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
• 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
• Pat dry the excess moisture using kitchen paper
• Mix the mackerel pike fish fillet with the curing ingredient, let it rest in fridge for at least 12 hours, discard the dripping liquid, patted dry.

• Once the mackerel pike fish is already cured, the texture will be firmer and the color turned darker
• Hung or exposed the meat with cured mackerel pike fish fillet, let the it the outside layer form a dry pellicle before hot smoking process
• Meanwhile, fire the wood block or charcoal until ready, put the wire netat least 45 inches above the charcoal, so the direct heat won’t too much contact the mackerel pike fish (you want the heat of the smoke touch the mackerel fillet)
• Scatter the soaked woodchips or sawdust, springkle with a little bit of water if necessary, let the smoke released
• Put the mackerel pike fish fillet above the wire net, do not overloded and kept some space beetween the meat so the heat of the smoke have a greater contact with the fish
• Keep the heat constant, let the smoke generate gently, ass more soaked wooodchips if necessary and cooked the meat until dry and the internal temperature reach 160 F (70 C), it takes above 20-30 minutes for 1 inch thickness mackerel fillet with gentle heat hot smoke

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Ketan Srikaya W’dank Bajigur Lapis Pandan & W’dank Bajigur Vanilla Fla (Sticky Rice with Coconut Milk Custard)

Ketan Srikaya W’dank Bajigur Lapis Pandan &  Fla Vanilla W’dank Bajigur, a lovely Takjil W’dank Bajigur dessert from Palembang which derived from Srivijaya-Malay cuisine. Ketan means glutinous rice and srikaya or srikayo or sometimes also called sarikaya means coconut milk custard, so ketan srikaya is savoury glutinous rice pudding topped with sweet custard made of egg yolk and coconut milk. Srikaya is coconut custard usually flavoured with pandan leaves extract to give a nice green color & distinct pandan fragrance.

Ketan Srikaya W’dank Bajigur Lapis Pandan is participating in blogging competition #TakjilWDankBajigur held by W’dank Bajigur Nutrisari. Glutinous rice  that priorly cooked with salt and coconut milk topped with coconut cream custard is definitely suits for my Moslem friend to recharge the body energy after more than 12 Hours of fasting.

Ketan sarikaya usually served in festive occation like wedding ceremony and also as a takdjil or break fasting dessert in the Ramadhan or Moslem fasting month here in Palembang. Ketan srikaya even one of the hantaran or a staple gift that given by the groom’s family to the bride’s family before the traditional Palembangnese wedding ceremony held.

Ketan Srikaya Takjil W’dank Bajigur Lapis Pandan is my creation, instead using traditional pandan flavoured for ketan sarikaya, i also infused Wedang bajigur into the custard, so the custard had two different flavour; wedang  bajigur and pandan which is combined very well into upscale comforting duo. The fla also made from W’dank Bajigur that i’m infused with some genuine Indonesian vanilla bean.

My Ketan Srikaya W’dank Bajigur Lapis Pandan served with W’dank Bajigur Vanilla Fla. My srikaya Takjil W’dank Bajigur custard is had two different color, the green is consist pandan extract flavour and the brown one contain W’dank bajigur. I try to layered the pandan and bajigur custard for a presentation purpose, you can create your own invention; marbled, overlapping or what ever technique you want, even you can pour it all the way as you wish.

The glutinous rice or sticky rice for the base or coconut cream custard usually savoury. The sticky rice cooked in thin coconut milk or santan with addition some salt to improved the taste. So the glutinous rice base for ketan srikaya Takjil W’dank Bajigur  cooked into slighly cooked first before flatened and pressed into the steaming mold for making ketan srikaya.

Nutrisari W’dank Bajigur launched on may 2013 to promoting the Indonesia traditional hot baverages in a sachet, simply to let the customer easier to access and made it what ever and when ever they want.Nutrisari W’dank Bajigur  is the brand  of modern healthy instant wedang bajigur drink that achived Cultural Award from Ministry of Tourism of the Republic of Indonesia for preserving and promoting Indonesian Tradition and Cultures.What i really love the most about Nutrisari W’dank Bajigur, it’s LESS CALORIES then regular beverages, so don’t bother of it’s gonna ruined your perfect body image. Once pack of Nutrisari W’dank Bajigur contain only 80 kcal compare to the other junk beverages with tons of preservatives and other things you won’t known about which also contain double amount of calories then Nutrisari W’dank Bajigur.

This is the vanilla bean bajigur fla made of W’dank Bajigur. I made the bajigur vanilla fla using genuine Papua Island organic vanilla bean that i dissolved with water, W’dank bajigur and some maizena, simmer with a very gentle stove until slighly bubbly and thicken a little bit. The W’dank Bajigur vanilla sauce then ready to served with the Ketan srikaya once it chilled in the refrigerator.

Want to upgrade the ketan srikaya ??? i put caster sugar over the the coconut milk custard then blowtorched it until caramelized and turn into browned and slighly burnt caramel crust. This simple cream brulee method made the coconut custard fancy and delicious even more, the burnt caramel give extra crisp texture into the ketan srikaya.

This is coconut cream creme brule with pandan and bajigur flavour.  Crème brûlée also known as burnt cream, crema catalana, or Trinity cream is a dessert consisting of a rich custard base topped with a contrasting layer of hard caramel. This torched caramel brulee coconut custard cream & glutinous rice puding is best served chilled.

I love savoury sweet on my dessert, so i also add some fine grain salt when i put the caster sgar before i blowtorch it until it caramelized. the interaction of salt and caramel is amazing, more than umami, salted caramel over ketan srikaya a.k.a coconut cream with pandan and bajigur flavoured custard is totally worth the effort!!!

The key to make this smooth and silky coconut custard is the temperature of the steaming, use gentle medium flames as the custard set and cooked slowly. Too high heat will made the coconut custrd expand and let the water contest expelled from the stable custard and turned ito spongy and bubbly custard which had not nice texture. Also do not forget some cloth to cover the steamer to prevent the water dripping ruining your cucunot custard.

SAVETY PRECAUTION!!!

You need to know about any food ingredients before you try to cooked it. W’dank bajigur contain Aspartam, aspartame is a low-calorie sweetener used in foods and beverages in more than 90 countries around the world, so Aspartam is TOTALY SAVETY for FOOD. The deal about aspartam is when you want to cooked it using heat, DO NOT COOK or HEATED ASPARTAM OVER 100ºC !!!

Dr. Roberts states in his book, Aspartame Is it Safe? said that exposing aspartam in prolonged high heat (MORE 100ºC) will  derived Diketopiperazine, a toxic metabolite that you don’t wanna know about, but the point this is bad for your health. beside, cooking aspartam too long resulting in a loss of sweetness, therefore, aspartame is not recommended for use in recipes requiring lengthy heating. It may, however, be added at the end of the cooking cycle in some recipes. SO you ONLY CAN WET COOKING ASPARTAM like Boiling, Steaming, Poaching,  and i’m NOT RECOMMENDED DRY COOKING ASPARTAM (conducted heat more than 100ºC) like baking, deep frying or grilling.

Recipe Ketan Srikaya Pandan W’dank Bajigur (Glutinous Rice with Coconut Milk Custard Recipe)

Ingredients :

A. Sticky Rice Layer

• 300 gr glutinous rice/sweet rice, soaked for 1 hour, drained
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 150 ml coconut milk
• 1 pandan leaves, tide a knot

B. Pandan Srikaya Custard (Green Layer)

• 3 egg yolk
• 1/2 cup castor sugar
• 2 tbsp sweet condensed milk
• 1 tbsp all purpose flour
• 150 ml coconut milk
• salt to taste
• organic pandan leaves extract

C. W’dank Bajigur Srikaya Custard (Brown Layer)

• 2 Sachets W’dank Bajigur Nutrisari
• 3 egg yolk
• 1/2 cup castor sugar
• 1 tbsp all purpose flour
• 2 tbsp sweet condensed milk
• 150 ml coconut milk
• salt to taste

Directions :

A. How to Cooking Glutinous Rice

1. Steam rice until half-cooked. Remove from steamer. Set aside.
2. Mix coconut milk, salt and pandan leaf, stir well, bring to a boil. Remove from heat.
3. Add coconut milk to the half-cooked rice. Stir until absorbed.
4. Put the rice sticky back on the steamer. Steam for 30 minutes unti nearly done and cooked.

B. Mixing Coconut Custard

1. In a separated bowl for the pandan and bajigur custard, mix all the coconut milk custard ingredients, you can processed it in the blender too to prevent any lump
2. Sieve the coconut in a siever, set aside

C. Making the Pandan & Bajigur Ketan Srikaya

1. Preheat the steamed in a medium heat, put some cloth to prefent the dripping water drop into the custard batch
2. Put the cooked glutinous rice in the bottom of heatproof ramekin bowl, condensed it then pierced with fork a little bit in the middle to make the custard sticking well over the glutinous rice.
3. Pour a quarter part of the pandan custard (A) then cover it to steam for about 3 minutes until the custard is set, then pour another quarter part of the W’dank Bajigur custard (B), let it steam for another 3 minutes and so on until all the custard set
4. Chill and refrigerate the Ketan Srikaya W’dank Bajigur Lapis Pandan, served with W’dank Bajigur Vanilla fla.

Recipe W’dank Bajigur Vanilla Fla:

Ingredients:

• 2 Sachets of W’dank Bajigur Nutrisari
• 300 ml water
• 1 tbsp corn flour
• 1 vanilla bean, scrapped

How to Make W’dank Bajigur Vanilla Fla:

1. Whisk W’dank Bajigur Nutrisari,vanilla bean,  water and cornflour in a mixing bown until smooth and no lump
2. Put the mixture into heavy bottom sauce pan, simmer down with very gentle heat, keep stirring
3. Once the fla mixture is slighly bubbly and thicken, turn off the heat and transfer the fla to refrigerator to chill
4. Swrved the W’dank BajigurVanilla Fla with Ketan Srikaya W’dank Bajigur Lapis Pandan

 

Recipe Beef Brisket Confit Poitrine de Beouf, Served with Sauteed Spring Vegetables, Gravy & Popcorn Shoots

Beef Brisket Confit Poitrine de Beouf, Served with Sauteed Spring Vegetables, Gravy & Popcorn Shoots

Beef Brisket Confit Served with Gravy, Sauteed Spring Vegetables & Popcorn Shoots. A chunky single portion of beef brisket, cured or seasoned with spices then cooked ala confit using duck fat and rice cooker for 24 hours then flash seared with blowtorch flames. The result of perfectly cooked beef confit method is obviously the most moist, fork tender &  renderred beef brisket you can imagine.

Beef Brisket Confit Poitrine de Beouf, Served with Sauteed Spring Vegetables, Gravy & Popcorn Shoots

Beef Brisket Confit Poitrine de Beouf, Served with Sauteed Spring Vegetables, Gravy & Popcorn Shoots

Confit (pronounced “con-fee”) is a classic of French culinary method of cooking for various kinds of food that have been submerged in oil or animal fat for both flavour and preservation. Sealed and stored in a cool place, confit can last for several months. Confit is one of the oldest ways to preserve food, and is a speciality of southwestern France.

Beef Brisket Confit Poitrine de Beouf, Served with Sauteed Spring Vegetables, Gravy & Popcorn Shoots

Beef Brisket Confit Poitrine de Beouf, Served with Sauteed Spring Vegetables, Gravy & Popcorn Shoots

Beef confit  maybe not as popular as duck confit (confit de canard) or goose confit (confit d’oie), but any kind of meat can be prepared this way; chicken, pork, seafood etc, you named it. This far i’ve made Homemade Goose Confit, Homemade Duck Confit , Homemade Turkey Leg Confit & Homemade Crayfish Confit, i even made Homemade Quail Confit with very tough egg laying quail that not raised for it’s meat and yet it resulting  a fork tender, moist and delicious quail meat i’ve ever taste compare to other coventional cooking method. So, the toughest the meat the better for confit cooking.

Perfectly cooked Beef Brisket Confit; Moist, Fork Tender & Delicious!

Beef Brisket Confit Poitrine de Beouf with Rice Cooker

CONFIT is NOT DEEP FRYING, that’s the basic information you had to know first. The difference beetween CONFIT & DEEP FRYING it the TEMPERATURE;  confit done in 70-90ºC while deep frying in much higher temperature than confit (about 170ºC). COnfit most likely using animal fat (mostly duck), but these day people even used vegetables oil and even some infused oil. Beef confit is best done in 65-90ºC duck fat, the rules of making beef confit is simple, simply completely submerged marinated or cured beef brisket in 90ºC rendered duck fat for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours minutes depending the size and the toughness of the beef confit, the lower the oil temperature the longer the period of confit cooking. Try my method of making beef cooking using rice cooker (or slow cooker), simply put tconfit the beef brisket in 90ºC (very gentle simmmer) for about 30 minutes or so then finished confit the beef brisket it in the rice cooker or slow cooker for another 12 to 24 hours.

Beef Brisket Confit Poitrine de Beouf, Served with Sauteed Spring Vegetables, Gravy & Popcorn Shoots

Moist, Tender &  Succulent Beef Brisket Confit

If you want to make beef confit, DO NOT LET THE CONFIT BATCH BOILING, make sure it’s very gentle simmer and only one tiny bubbles comes out once at a time. If you let the beef confit batch boiling or you simply want to rushed the cooking process you will ruined your beef confit and resulting a dry, tough and very flaky meat.  Boiling confit batch oil temperature made the natural juice or water content in the beef meat boiled and evaporates, thus made the beef confit meat dried and tough even more. The oil or fat temperature for making beef confit is just enough to break down the beef meat collagen into gelatine without much drying (boiling) the water contents on it. So, basicaly the temperature and the period is the difference of deep frying and confit, confit is prolonged cooking in oil in a low temperature while deep frying is flashed dehydration cooking in oil in a high temperature.

Confit Poitrine de Beouf

Confit Poitrine de Beouf is the French name for the beef brisket confit. Traditionaly, beef confit is served during the winter because human body need more fat in our daily diet intake to encounter the cold climates. Beef confit can be served many ways, usually with simple carbs like mashed potato or mashed celeriac, but it’s common to to served beef confit with tender stewed navy bean like the way i served my Braised Lamb Shank.  many people also concern about the duck fat that used in confit, my sister even colled me insane simply judging the ammout of rendered duck fat i’m using thou, never mind!. You should know that DUCK FAT is HEALTHY FAT, packed with many mono unsaturated fatty acid that actually keep you away from any cardiovascular disease. Even the rendered duck fat is healthy, doesn’t mean it didn’t contain high calories, so be wise for what you eat, i recommended that confit dish is served once or twice a week maximum.

Confit Poitrine de Beouf

Now shall we make the beef brisket confit ?

Beef Brisket Confit in Duck Fat Using Rice Cooker

First, rubbed the beef brisket with salt, herbs and spices then then refrigerated for up to 24 hours, do not forget to cover it with plastic cling wrap or even better vaccom packed it to prevent oxidation and discoloritsation. Salt-curing the beef meat prior to confit cooking acts as a preservative and flavour infusion. Prior to cooking, the spices are rinsed from the cured beef meat, which is then patted dry. The meat is placed in a cooking dish deep enough to contain the meat and the rendered duck  fat, bring it to 90 C and let it gently simmer for about 30 minutes then placed in a rice cooker container and finished to confit the beef brisket for another 24 hours. Once again, when you simmer the cured beef brisket,  the confit batch should not be hard boiling, but only very gently little bubbles once at a time allowed.

Searing the Beef Brisket Confit with Blowtorch

The beef confit is done in one more important step; searing. You can heat up about 1 tablespoon of duck fat in a pan and heai it up until slighly smokey. Carefully browned and seared the tender beef confit with the fat cap side down first until the beef fat is rendered  golden brown first then finished to seared the beef brisket confit all over. I like to sear my beef brisket confit with blowtorch, way more efficient and easy to do. You can served the beef confit with gravy and anything you want.

Beef Brisket Confit Poitrine de Beouf, Served with Sauteed Spring Vegetables, Gravy & Popcorn Shoots

Beef Brisket Confit Poitrine de Beouf, Served with Sauteed Spring Vegetables, Gravy & Popcorn Shoots

Sauteed spring vegetablest that i paired for serving the beef brisket confit is very simple. I cut eggplant, chayote, pumpkin, celery, red bell pepper, green jalapeno pepper & some carrot into bite pieces then sauteed until slighly browned with the duck fat from the beef confit. Without adding any broth i had quite strong beefy flavour infusion from the duck fat itself.

Popcorn Shoots or Microgreen Sweet Popcorn: Tender, Crisp, Sweet & Refreshing Delicacy!

This is popcorn shoots or microgreen sweet popcorn  that i’m using a as a garnish for serving my beef brisket confit. Popcorn shoots is simpy made made like conventional planting, but WITHOUT any sunlight exposure what so ever. The yellowish popcorn shoots is tender, sweet and taste amazing, like delicate raw sweet corn. Popcorn shoots is considered as a pricey gourmet food ingredients, so i guess home grown popcorn shoots is worth the effort.

Recipe Beef Brisket Confit Poitrine de Beouf

Recipe Beef Brisket Confit Poitrine de Beouf :

Ingredients:

• 1 kg Beef Brisket, cut into 4 equally portion (250 gr each)
• 3 cloves garlic, finely choped
• 3 sprigs thyme, roughly chopped
• 1 sprig of rosemarry, roughly chopped
• 1/2 tbsp whole juniper berries, crushed
• 1 tsp freshly grounded black pepper
• salt & peppercorn to taste
• 2 tbsp smoked paprika powder#optional
• 1 tbp powdered bbq seasoning#optional
• 6 red chilies pepper, finely chopped#optional
• 10 cups (2 L) rendered duck fat

How to Make Beef Brisket Confit:

• Mix salt, garlic, thyme, rosemarry and the rest of the seasoning together, spread evenly over the beef brisket, wrapped it with cling wrap or vaccum packed it to prevent oxidation and discoloration, marinate it overnight.
• Rinse off marinade from the beef brisket gently, you want some of the spices remaining stick in the beef brisket, dust with extra peppercorn powder if needed
• Cover the beef brisket with duck fat in a sauce pan and bring it to 90 C or very gentle simmer and only tiny little bubbles comes out once at a time, let it confit for about 30 minutes
• Transfer the duck fat and the marinated beef confit batch into  a rice cooker ot slow cooker container,  cover and let the beef confit finished for another 12 to 24 hours.
• Once the beef brisket confit is fork tender, pat it dry (you can refrigerate the whole beef confit batch to make it more easy to remove the beef confit from the duck fat)
• Pan fried the fat cap  beef brisket confit until crisp and browned or seared it with blowtocrh, served the beef brisket confit with sauteed summer vegetables

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