Grilled Red Fish Marinated in Sake Lees (Akauo Kasuzuke)

Grilled Red Fish Marinated in Sake Lees (Akauo Kasuzuke) is a wonderful dish. It uses a simple marinade, but is full of flavour. You will definitely taste alcohol, but the sweetened alcohol-based marinade is full of umami and adds a complex flavour to the fish.

The marinade made with sake lees is called ‘kasudoko’ (粕床) in Japanese. It is very similar to Pork Kasuzuke marinade, but the flavour and the texture are slightly different. The kasudoko for Pork Kasuzuke has more sugar, and it is marginally softer.

When fish is marinated in sake lees, more water comes out compared to marinating meat. So, I reduced the quantity of liquid in the marinade by eliminating mirin from the ingredients used in the Pork Kasuzuke recipe.  I also think that the sweeter marinade suits meat better than fish.

Having said that, the difference between the two marinades is very small and you can interchange them.

About Akauo

The word ‘akauo’ (赤魚) means red fish. ‘Aka’ (赤) is red, and ‘uo’ (魚) is fish. The Kanji character for fish, 魚, is also read as ‘sakana’ (meaning fish) when represented as a stand-alone word. You might be more familiar with the word ‘sakana‘ than ‘uo‘.

Alfonsino is one of the akauo species.

Akauo is a generic name for deep-sea fish that have red skin. Akauo includes alfonsino, imperadore, and ocean perch, and other similar species. I used alfonsino fillets today, but you can use other akauo fillets.

I used akauo to marinate in sake lees because the contrast between the white sake lees and the red skin of the fish looks good. But there is no reason why you cannot marinate other fish such as salmon using today’s marinade.

What’s in My Grilled Red Fish Marinated in Sake Lees

• Alfonsino fillets, skin on
• Salt (optional)

As mentioned earlier, you don’t have to use alfonsino, but red-skinned fish will look good in this dish.

In the recipe card, I included two different methods of preparing the fish before marinating it. One method does not require salt but takes longer to prepare.

Sake Lees Marinade (Kasudoko)

• Sake kasu (sake lees)
• Miso
• Sugar
• Cooking sake
• Salt

The marinade does not require many ingredients, but you do need a bag of sake lees, which you can buy frozen at a Japanese grocery store. Click the the link above and see the photo of sake kasu packet.

Kasudoko can be reused within 1 week in the fridge. You can also freeze kasudoko for a month. I sometimes make a large quantity of kasudoko, freeze it, and marinate fish/meat later.

How to Make Grilled Red Fish Marinated in Sake Lees

At a very high level, you basically prepare the fish, make the marinade, marinate the fish, and grill the fish. There are two different ways of preparing the fish, and also two different ways of marinating the fish. I included these methods in the recipe card.

1. Prepare fish fillets by drying in the fridge overnight or sprinkling salt over the fillets to remove the fishy smell.

2. Mix the Sake Lees Marinade ingredients and make a smooth paste.

3. Thoroughly coat each fillet with marinade and marinate for 2-3 days in the fridge. You can marinate fillets in a tray or in a zip lock bag.

or

4. Scrape the marinade off the fish fillets and grill.

I have already posted a few grilled fish recipes, so the method of grilling red fish fillets is nothing new.  In my recipe card, I used an oven griller, but you can use one of the other methods that are mentioned in the following recipes:

Saikyo Yaki Fish
Japanese Salmon
Grilled Whiting Fillets

I love Akauo Kasuzuke. The balance between the aroma of sake and sweetness is perfect. Compared to salted fish like Salted Salmon or Grilled Snapper, the original flavour of the fish is enhanced by the umami that comes from kasudoko. It is a refined flavour.

Yumiko

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Grilled Red Fish Marinated in Sake Lees (Akauo Kasuzuke)

Prep Time

40 mins

Cook Time

6 mins

Marinating Time

3 d

Total Time

3 d 46 mins

 

Grilled Red Fish Marinated in Sake Lees (Akauo Kasuzuke) is a wonderful dish. It uses a simple marinade, but it is full of flavour. You will definitely taste alcohol, but the sweetened alcohol-based marinade is full of umami and adds a complex flavour to the fish.

Prep Time assumes Method 2 of Fish Preparation.

Don't forget to see the section 'MEAL IDEAS' below the recipe card! It gives you a list of dishes that I have already posted and this recipe that can make up a complete meal. I hope it is of help to you.

Recipe Type: Main

Cuisine: Japanese

Keyword: grilled fish recipes, marinated fish, red fish recipes, sake lees recipe

Serves: 4

Author: Yumiko

Ingredients (tbsp=15ml, cup=250ml)

• 4 red fish fillets (about 150g/ per fillet, note 1)5.3oz
• 1 tsp salt (note 2)

Kasudoko (Sake Lees Marinade)

• 200g/7.1oz sake kasu (sake lees)
• 20g/0.7oz brown miso
• 1½ tbsp sugar
• 1½ tbsp cooking sake
• 1 tsp salt

Instructions

Fish Fillets Preparation – pick one of the two methods below (note 3)

Method 1

1. Quickly rinse the fillets and pat dry well.

2. Wrap each fillet with kitchen paper (optional, I didn't do it).

3. Place a rack on a tray and put the fillets on the rack, skin side up. It is important to get an airflow around the fillets.

4. Place the fish on the rack in the fridge overnight, without covering them.

Method 2

1. Quickly rinse the fillets and pat dry well.

2. Sprinkle salt all over the fish fillets and leave them for 30 minutes.

3. Pat dry and remove the moisture from the fillets with kitchen paper.

Making Kasudoko (Sake Lees Marinade)

1. Put cooking sake, sugar, and salt in a bowl and mix well until, the sugar and salt are dissolved.

2. Put sake lees in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave it for about 30 seconds (note 4).

3. Add miso to the sake lees and mix.

4. Add the cooking sake with sugar and salt to the sake lees mixture and mix well using a spatula until the paste is smooth with no lumps of sake lees (note 5).

Marinating Fish Fillets – pick one of the two methods below (note 6)

Marinating Method 1

1. You will need a tray that can fit 4 fish fillets without overlapping.

2. Spread slightly less than half of kasudoko on the bottom of the tray. If the tray is very large, spread the kasudoko only on the area where the fillets will be placed.

3. Place the fish fillets on the kasudoko.

4. Spread the rest of the kasudoko over the fish fillets, ensuring that each fillet is covered with kasudoko.

5. Place a piece of cling wrap over the fish, removing the air pockets so that the cling wrap sticks to the surface of the fish fillets covered with kasudoko.

6. Cover the tray with cling wrap and leave it in the fridge for 2-3 days (note 7).

Marinating Method 2

1. Divide the kasudoko into 8 equal portions. Take one portion of Kasudoko and spread it over one side of a fish fillet using a thin spatula.

2. Place the fillet on a piece of baking paper (or a plate/tray), the kasudoko side down.

3. Spread 1/8 of the kasudoko over the surface of the fillet on the baking paper.

4. Using the spatula, remove the fillet with kasudoko on it from the baking paper and put it in a zip lock bag.

5. Repeat for the remaining fillets. You can place all of them in a large bag, without overlapping, or individually in small bags.

6. Marinate the fish in the fridge for 2-3 days (note 7).

Grilling Sake Lees Marinated Fish (note 8)

1. Pre-heat the oven grill.
2. Place a rack on a baking tray covered with aluminium foil.
3. Scrape the marinade off the fish as much as possible using a spatula. Sake lees marinade contains sugar and burns easily if you leave a lot of marinade on the surface of the fillets.
4. Put the fish fillets on the rack skin side down, then place the tray under the oven grill. The distance between the heat and the fish should be about 10cm/4”. If the grill is too close to the fish, the fish will burn before it is cooked.

5. Cook for a few minutes until the edge of the fish starts burning. Turn it over and cook further 2-3 minutes.

6. Remove the fillets from the grill and place them on the serving plate and serve immediately.

Recipe Notes

1. I bought a whole alfonsino and got the fish shop to fillet it. I then cut each side of the fillet into two, making 4 fillets.

By ‘red fish’, I mean red skinned deep-sea fish, rather than a particular species of fish. This is because you can use other red fish such as ocean perch, red bream, imperador, etc., instead of the alfonsino that I used.

You don’t have to use red skinned fish, but I thought the contrast between the white sake lees and the red skin looked good. There is no reason why you can’t even marinate salmon fillet or snapper fillet.

2. If you are using Fish Fillets Preparation Method 1, you don’t need salt.

3. I used Method 1 because I had no plan to use the fillets until the next day. This method of keeping the fillets in the fridge without covering them is a similar concept to aging beef.

The fishy smell comes from the wet surface of the fish. Pat drying the fillets and exposing them to the air in the fridge prevents the fish getting wet.

For the same reason, you sprinkle salt over the fish fillets in Method 2. The salt extracts water from fillets, and it removes the fishy smell by wiping the moisture of the fillets.

4. This is to soften your sake lees because sake lees in a flat pack is usually not very soft, particularly when it is stored in the fridge or freezer. If your sake lees is very soft already and easy to mix with other ingredients, you don’t need to microwave it.

5. Alternatively, you can use a stick blender to mix the ingredients.

6. Marinating Method 1 uses a tray, but spreading the kasudoko over the fish is easier. Washing up is minimal with Marinating Method 2 as you use plastic bags that will be thrown away. But putting kasudoko all over the fish fillet is more time consuming in this method.

7. You can freeze the fish covered with the kasudoko after 2 days of marinating them in the fridge. It keeps for 1 month in the freezer.

8. There are other ways of cooking your marinated fish. The recipes in the following posts explain various ways of grilling/cooking sliced fish that you could try.

Saikyo Yaki Fish
Japanese Salmon
Grilled Whiting Fillets0

Depending on the thickness of your fillet and the strength of your grill, cooking time varies. Kasudoko burns easily, so be careful not to burn the fish by adjusting the distance between the heat and the fish.

9. You can re-use kasudoko within 1 week in the fridge. You can also freeze unused kasudoko for a month.

10. Nutrition per 100g. It is almost impossible for me to calculate the nutrition information for today's dish, because majority of sake lees is not eaten but some nutrients are absorbed into the fish. So, I used a Japanese Nutrition website and obtained the basic information for a piece of Akauo Kasuzuke.

serving: 100g calories: 100kcal fat: 2.4g saturated fat: 0.23g  sodium: 116mg  carbohydrates: 1.8g  dietary fibre: 0.3g protein: 17.6g vitamin a: 26mg vitamin c: 0g calcium: 15mg iron: 0.3mg