Miso-Sake Roasted Sablefish SERVES 2
2 - 4 oz sablefish fillets (skin on)
Marinade 3 tbsp sake 3 tbsp mirin ½ cup white miso 1/3 cup sugar
Broth 1 cup dashi 2 tbsp soy sauce ¼ cup ginger (sliced thin)
Garnish options ¾ cup carrot (julienned) ¾ cup soba noodles (cooked) Shimeji mushrooms Shelled edamame beans Garlic chips Green onion (julienned) Or topping of your choice
“Here you can have this experience of going out with someone who has a fishing licence and seeing the fish pulled freshly out of the water, and putting that on the plate the same day. As a chef it’s pretty inspiring.”–Chef David Robertson processing and preserving all types of food, and winter was celebrating all the harvest and bounty with potlatches.” The Haida people weren’t exclusively fishermen and foragers, he says, noting that they also cultivated crabapples, berries and medicinal plants. This abundance of food in turn translated into cultural wealth: if you’re scrambling for food, you don’t have time to carve and erect 50-foot totem poles or build 3,000-square-foot post-and-beam longhouses. “There’s no end to how much food we have. As a result, our culture, artwork, architecture and political system were highly developed,” says Swanson. After Chef David’s throwdown of incredible meals at Ocean House, I’m not sure I can be wowed further, but Chef Brodie’s food is, to use the Haida word embroidered on his black ballcap, xuux— “something impressive, cool, dope.” On the final evening, our “Feast Night” menu starts with freshly
baked, naturally leavened sourdough served with seaweed butter. Then skewered salmon bellies with gochujang glaze, followed by a butter-basted butter clam—seasoned not with added salt, but with smoked razor clam powder and cured egg yolk. Along with steamed black cod, the mains include black garlic-ginger-soy Dungeness crab legs, and venison tartare with pickled sea asparagus and carrot broth. “The sea asparagus gives the tartare some salty pop and texture,” says Swanson. “It was the first time I’d tried that. I was inspired by seeing the deer browse on it here.” Four days of boat rides, laid-back forest walks and kayak paddles, all followed by elaborate fivecourse meals. By the time our helicopter comes to pick us up on day five, I am a bipedal version of that bear we saw on the shore: a sausage on two legs. If you do head to Ocean House, four words of advice are all you need. Eat there, diet later.
Bring sake and mirin to a boil for about 20 seconds to cook off alcohol. (Careful: alcohol may flame.) Turn heat off and whisk in miso till smooth, then add sugar and bring back to a boil on high heat. Constantly stir to make sure marinade doesn’t burn on the bottom of the pot. Let cool, then marinate sablefish for a minimum of 2 hours or a maximum of 2 days. Once marinated, set oven to high broil. Place sablefish on baking sheet lined with tinfoil and broil for 4 to 7 minutes, depending on thickness. Be careful not to burn, and check regularly. If sablefish is not fully cooked, but is fully caramelized, switch oven to bake to complete. Add dashi, thinly sliced ginger and soy sauce to a sauce pot. Bring broth to a simmer to steep the ginger, then remove ginger once you have a mild ginger flavour. (It should not be overpowering.) Once fish is out from the oven and resting, add carrots, soba noodles and shelled edamame beans. Bring broth back up to heat, then plate. Garnish to taste with mushrooms, radish, seaweeds, garlic chips, or any kind of topping you like.
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