Our Favourite Recipes for Sea Perch or Nodoguro
Nodoguro is also known as blackthroat seaperch and is one of the fattiest whitefish. This makes it highly sought-out and often sells out quickly when available.
If you’re fortunate enough to find some of this astonishingly buttery fish, you can try some of the recipes below.
Nodoguro Sashimi
Perhaps the purest and easiest way to prepare nodoguro is as sashimi. This focuses the diner’s attention on the clean, natural taste of the fish and its inherent fattiness.
Level of difficulty:
Easy
Estimated prep time:
10 mins
Ingredients required:
- 150 g of fish per person
Steps:
- If the fish hasn’t been filleted and deboned yet, do that first.
- Slice the fillet against the grain into rectangular pieces with a thickness of about 2 cm.
- Serve with soy sauce and wasabi.
Pro Tip: To give your sashimi plate a bit of extra pizzazz, try using shiso leaves as added decorations.
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Nodoguro Aburi
Nodoguro has an unusual amount of fat for a firm whitefish. Its meat has a delicate sweetness and a rich flavour.
We love this fish aburi-style because it brings the flavourful oils to the surface, imparting a smoky, almost baconlike flavour to the flesh, which melts in your mouth. It can be served on its own or on a bed of rice.
Level of difficulty:
Easy
Estimated prep time:
8 mins
Ingredients required:
- Nodoguro fillets, sliced
- Butane blow torch
Steps:
- Place the nodoguro pieces on a heat-resistant plate or metal tray.
- Blow-torch the surface of the nodoguro pieces until the surfaces begin to char. Ensure you sear the entire surface of each piece.
- Garnish with a sprinkle of sea salt and serve on a bed of rice.
Pro Tip: If you don’t have a blowtorch, you can make aburi Nodoguro by placing thin metal skewers through the fillet. Burn the surface of the fillet over a binchotan or gas stove then.
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Grilled nodoguro with sauce
Grilling adds more depth of flavour to nodoguro’s buttery taste. This take on the fish is excellent if you have a little more time to dedicate to the cooking and prep process.
Level of difficulty:
Medium
Estimated prep time:
30 mins
Ingredients required:
- Nodoguro fillets
- Sake
- Sweet sake
- Soy sauce
- Sugar
- Yuzu
- Celery leaves
Ingredients required:
- Nodoguro fillets
- Sake
- Sweet sake
- Soy sauce
- Sugar
- Yuzu
- Celery leaves
Steps:
- Use cloth or paper towels to wipe away excess moisture from the fillets.
- Season the fillets with salt.
- Slice the yuzu and remove the seeds, then squeeze the juice into a bowl.
- Add 4 tbsp each of sake, sweet sake and soy sauce to the yuzu juice and mix it.
- Add 35g of sugar to the mixture in the bowl and blend it again.
- Put the fillets in the blended mixture and let them marinate for 10 mins.
- Cut the fillets into smaller pieces and skewer them.
- Grill the skewered fish.
- Serve the grilled fish on a bed of celery leaves and with a bowl of rice.
Steps:
- Use cloth or paper towels to wipe away excess moisture from the fillets.
- Season the fillets with salt.
- Slice the yuzu and remove the seeds, then squeeze the juice into a bowl.
- Add 4 tbsp each of sake, sweet sake and soy sauce to the yuzu juice and mix it.
- Add 35g of sugar to the mixture in the bowl and blend it again.
- Put the fillets in the blended mixture and let them marinate for 10 mins.
- Cut the fillets into smaller pieces and skewer them.
- Grill the skewered fish.
- Serve the grilled fish on a bed of celery leaves and with a bowl of rice.
Pro Tip: This dish does very well with the addition of texture through a crisp, fried element. Try things like fried kale, shoestring fries, or even kadayif.
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