Miso glazed Cornish mackerel, kaeshi, smoked aubergine

Recipe by Chef Ollie Hay, Kikkkoman Masters 2016 Runner Up
- Serves4
Ingredients
Dish ingredients
- 1 Nashi pear
- 15g Dill oil
- 10g Dill snow
- 1 fresh Cornish mackerel
- 50g Miso glaze
- 75g Aubergine puree
- 50g kaeshi gel
- 1 Pickled Japanese cucumber
- Kinome leaf
- Sansho flower
For Miso and soy glaze
- 100g white miso paste
- 200g mirin
- 200g sake
- 30g caster sugar
- 100g Kikkoman soy sauce
For Pickled Cucumber
- 125g Sugar
- 25g Salt
- 20g Kombu
- 200g Rice vinegar
- 10g Crushed Pink peppercorns
For Aubergine puree
- 2 aubergines
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- ½ teaspoon ground coriander
- ½ lemon (juice)
- ½ teaspoon tahini
- Salt and pepper
- 15g virgin olive oil
For Dill oil
- 250g dill tips
- 100g Neutral rapeseed oil
For Dill snow
- 30g Dill oil
- 15g maltosec
For Kaeshi gel
- 11g water
- 25g sugar
- 112g Kikkoman soy sauce
- 1 dried shitake
- 175g dashi stock (recipe below)
- 16g ultratex
Method
Miso and soy glaze:
Add all the ingredients apart from Kikkoman soy to a Bain Marie. Bring to light simmer and reduce for 30 minutes until glossy and syrupy.
Take off the heat and whisk in the Kikkoman’s soy sauce.
Chill the mix ready for the mackerel.
Pickled Cucumber:
Add all ingredients to a small pan and simmer until completely dissolved.
Put the cucumber on a tray, which is sat on top of another tray filled with ice.
Pour the warm pickle over.
Ensuring the ice bath quickly cools the cucumber and pickle liquid down.
This leaves you with a beautifully crunchy finish to pickled cucumber.
Aubergine puree:
Roast aubergines whole all over on a medium heated solid top
Take aubergines off and let cool slightly
Scrape out insides and hang in a sieve to get rid of the excess moisture
Blitz together with the rest of the ingredients until homogenised
Season with salt and pepper
Dill oil:
Blanch the dill tips for 30 seconds in boiling, salted water.
Refresh in ice water.
Press all the possible liquid out of the dill.
Blitz in a thermomix at 80c for 6 minutes.
Strain through a fine chinois and reserve until needed.
Dill snow:
Gently whisk the maltosec into the oil until it becomes light and powdery.
Kaeshi gel
Heat water, sugar, Kikkoman soy and shitake until dissolved.
Take off just before it comes to simmer.
Remove the shitake and add the chilled dashi stock.
Hand-blend the ultratex into the mixture until completely homogenised.
Reserve gel.