(This is Part 2 of a series on black cod, also known as sable­fish.  For more about the fish itself and how it’s har­vest­ed, please vis­it Part 1, Seek­ing the Sus­tain­able: Alaskan Black Cod.)

Our friend Jer­ry Dzu­gan is the direc­tor of the fan­tas­tic Alas­ka Marine Safe­ty Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion (AMSEA), a tire­less advocate/teacher work­ing to keep fish­er­men and oth­er mariners safe. For­tu­nate­ly for us, he’s equal­ly enthu­si­as­tic about invit­ing friends over for din­ner, and is a pro at cook­ing up Sitka’s nat­ur­al boun­ty into healthy, deli­cious meals. I’ll be for­ev­er grate­ful to Jer­ry for intro­duc­ing me to the joys of black cod and shar­ing this quin­tes­sen­tial Sit­ka recipe.

Black Cod Mari­nade, Sitka-Style

¹⁄₂ c Yoshi­da’s teriya­ki sauce

¹⁄₄ c apple cider vinegar

¹⁄₄ c orange juice (I pre­fer an orange, so we have fresh zest with the juice)

1 pound of black cod.  We use tips because that’s what we have; a fil­let would pro­duce equal­ly deli­cious results.

My favorite kind of recipe — simple!

With the fish spread out in a shal­low bak­ing pan, we start by grat­ing orange zest over the meat.  After that, we squeeze the juice into a bowl and mix in the Yoshi­da’s and vine­gar. Pour the mari­nade over the fish and let it refrig­er­ate for a while — “a while” mean­ing a cou­ple hours to overnight, depend­ing on your time frame.

When you’re ready to cook, pre­pare a skil­let over medi­um-heat with a tea­spoon or so of sesame oil and a lit­tle minced gar­lic.  We let the pan get fair­ly hot, so there’s a sat­is­fy­ing siz­zle when you add the fish.  We pour a cou­ple table­spoons of mari­nade in and put a lid on.  You should be able to flip it over at about 4 min­utes in, and may want to add a bit more liq­uid.  After anoth­er 4 min­utes or so, you’ll know it’s done when the meat flakes apart under a fork. Much of the mari­nade will have cooked off, leav­ing a heav­ier glaze behind.

Siz­zlin’ away…

Such a very sim­ple recipe for some­thing so deli­cious.  My favorite ways to serve these are equal­ly sim­ple: fish as above, rice, and some veg­gies, or toss­ing the fish in with stir-fried veg­gies and yak­iso­ba noo­dles.  (Baby bok choy seems espe­cial­ly hap­py to be part­nered with black cod.)  You’ll feel your body thank you for such a good meal!

As beau­ti­ful as it is delicious.

Black cod is a tremen­dous­ly ver­sa­tile fish that Amer­i­cans have been miss­ing out on.  Stay tuned for Part 3 of this series — black cod with miso soup.  If you’re still strug­gling with a cold, reluc­tant spring, as I am, that one goes out to you, sweet reader.