In The Kitchen With Tadashi Ono - Halibut Hot Pot

I recently enjoyed a staggeringly good dinner at Tadashi Ono's cavernous Matsuri restaurant anchored in Manhattan's Maritime Hotel. He personally selected a recipe for a Halibut Hot Pot from his new book, Japanese Hot Pots, to be featured here. Domo Arigato Tadashi!
Halibut Hot Pot
Inspired by Ara Nabe (a variety of grouper from Fukuoka)

Serves 4

1 pound halibut fillet
1/4 teaspoon salt, plus more for curing the fish (to concentrate the flavor and make the fish denser)
2 (6-inch) pieces kombu
1 ounce harusame (thin, tranparent starchy noodles), soaked in water for 15 minutes
1/2 pound napa cabbage, sliced
1 negi (a Japanese onion, or sub two large scallions per negi), sliced on angle into 2-inch pieces
1/2 package (about 1/2 pound) firm tofu, cut into 4 pieces
6 ounces oyster mushrooms, trimmed and pulled apart
3 1/2 ounces (half of a 200-gram package) enoki mushrooms, trimmed and pulled apart
4 cups water
1 cup sake
1 cup ponzu (the sweet citrusy ponzu sauce may be found in Japanese markets), for dipping
1/4 cup momiji oroshi (a blend of Japanese chilies and daikon available in Japanese markets), for garnish
1/2 cup thinly sliced fresh chives, for garnish

To cure the halibut, very lightly salt it on both sides and place it in the refrigerator, loosely covered, for 30 minutes. Remove the fish, wipe off excess moisture on its surface with a paper towel, and cut into 1/2 inch thick slices. Set aside.
Place the kombu on the bottom of a hot pot and the harusame over the kombu. Place the cabbage, negi, tofu, oyster mushrooms, and enoki mushrooms on top of the harusame, arranging each ingredient in a separate, neat bunch. Pour in the 4 cups water and the sake, and sprinkle in the 1/4 teaspoon salt.
Cover the hot pot and bring it to a boil over high heat. Decrease the heat to medium and simmer for 5 minutes. Uncover the pot and arrange the halibut slices on top of the other ingredients. Simmer until the fish is cooked through, about 5 minutes more.
While the hot pot is simmering, pour the ponzu into four small bowls.
Transfer the hot pot ot the dining table. Garnish the ponzu with the momiji oroshi and the chives. Dip the ingredients into the ponzu, and eat.

Serve with rice zosui:
This is basically a soupy rice, a shime that typically complements thinner, more delicate broths. The technique is simple. For four servings, add 2 cups cooked Japanese short grain rice to the remaining broth in a hot pot. Bring to a boil over medium heat. As soon as the hot pot boils, turn off the heat, mix the contents well, and serve in individual bowls.

Variations:
You can also prepare this hot pot with cod, Chilean sea bass, turbot, pollack, North American grouper, or barramundi.

Tableside Cooking Option:
Arrange the ingredients on serving platters. After curing the halibut, do all the cooking at the dining table. Add the supporting ingredients all at once, or reserve half or more to cook later. Cook a little of the fish at a time.

To order Tadashi's marvelous book, click here or here!

Just For The Halibut

This was totally off the cuff: I just happened upon a Martha Stewart recipe I had printed out in 2007 for Halibut with Grapefruit and Rosemary. I had planned to make dinner for Baby and me and since we already had halibut in the refrigerator courtesy of a fisherman friend, I went out and bought some Del Monte SunFresh red grapefruit segments, Florida's Natural Ruby Red Grapefruit juice and fresh rosemary. Seemed to me to be a pretty good way to welcome in the summer. Ms. Stewart's recipe naturally calls for exacting work, such as trimming the pith from two ruby red grapefruits, etc. but my trimmed down version of the recipe is easier and simply fantastic for a simple evening at home, served with a side of Corn and Shrimp Salsa, which is my own recipe.

Halibut for Two (adapted from marthastewart.com)

2 cups Ruby Red Grapefruit juice

8 segments from a jar of red grapefruit segments

1 sprig plus 1 tsp chopped rosemary

1 Tb sugar

Salt and black pepper

Olive oil

2 pieces of skinless halibut, sized to your appetite

-Preheat broiler

-Pour juice, rosemary, sugar, 1/4 cup water, 1/4 tsp salt into a small saucepan over medium heat and let boil until reduced to a syrup, about 15 minutes or so. If sauce becomes too thick, simply add a little more juice to thin out

-Brush fish with olive oil, salt and pepper and place on a baking sheet in the oven for about 10 minutes

-When juice mixture has been reduced to a fragrant syrup, toss out the rosemary sprig, and add the grapefruit segments to warm up
-Drizzle over your fabulous fish, each dish topped with the segments, divided between the plates

Corn and Shrimp Salsa

I thought a nice side would be a corn and shrimp salsa as we also had some deveined Black Tiger shrimp in our freezer, which was easily thawed by spraying cold water over them in a colander for two or three minutes. I roasted three ears of corn in a 450 degree oven, coating them with lemon olive oil, extra virgin oil, lime juice and salt and black pepper. Grilled shrimp (about two minutes each side in a Calphalon grill pan) was also done so in both oils and more pepper. I chopped the whites and some of the green ends of two scallions and put them in an accomodating bowl, and covered with the still steaming shrimp, some salt, and lime juice. The roasted corn was easily shaved off the cob once cooled, the kernels falling into the other ingredients of the salsa mixture. Spoon a heaping portion on a plate alongside the halibut.

Halibut and salsa...just for the hell of it!