042: Shiso-Steamed Fish
plus using leftovers to make a Casual Shiso Onigiri (emphasis on “casual”)
Welcome to Home Cooking Diary, a newsletter on my journey as a home cook—the successes and failures alike. Cooking log, photo diary, and recipe recommender. This is all about Shiso, a summer herb I’m always seeking out this time of year.
One of the highlights for me at the market every summer is Shiso (or Perilla), an herb in the form of really beautiful teardrop-shaped leaves. One side of the leaf is a deep eggplant and the other side, a sage green. It has a bitter, earthy taste and mint-like texture. I love it wilted and sauteed, as you would spinach or swiss chard, and I also love eating it raw.
Last summer I bought a small shiso plant from Great Joy Family Farm at our local farmer’s market, and was elated when it came back this year. As you might remember, I’m a bit new to the gardening game, and had virtually no idea how to care for a perennial, especially a potted one. I let it go to seed and didn’t even trim it back, leaving it outside all winter long with the dead stem intact (Reed eventually pointed out that I could trim that back). So imagine my elation when it came back this spring, and expanded into not just one stem, but many. Over the Fourth of July I finally transplanted it into our raised bed, along with other herbs and a tomato plant, very nervous that it would die in the process. The roots disintegrated a bit and it looked a bit sad and wilted for a couple days as it settled in. I pruned it about a week later in the hopes it would begin to thrive. I’m hopeful my little Shiso baby will soldier on.
While my Shiso plant might not yield enough leaves to harvest yet, I was able to find Great Joy Family Farm at the Beacon Farmer’s Market one Sunday and bought a nice bunch. At the Montauk Fish stand I decided to splurge on fluke (not cheap, this farm stand), and at home while thinking about how to prepare it for dinner, found myself thinking about the trend of wrapping foods in fig leaves (nothing new, of course, but I think it’s a bit of a “thing” right now, popularized by cooks like Laila Gohar and Natasha Pickowicz and others).
Shiso is a sturdy leaf, but less so, and a vastly different texture, so I draped the leaves all over both sides of the fish and steamed it, serving it alongside some black rice. I steamed it low and slow, fully encased in aluminum foil, so that the fish would hopefully become infused with the shiso flavor. We ate it with the steamed leaves intact, so they became a bit like a vegetable side of wilted greens to accompany the rice and fish.
I always have leftovers but I was particularly excited about these. For lunch I plucked large Shiso leaves off of my bunch from the market, spooned a bit of rice on top, then added pieces of fish to each. I finished it all by drizzling toasted sesame oil over it, and sprinkling Queens Gochugaru on top. I later made a version with leftover skirt steakas well—so good. Depending on the size of the leaf, each one was a one or two bite affair and reminded me of onigiri, one of my favorite snacks on earth. Is it sacrilige to call it that? Maybe? To be true onigiri the ingredients would be pressed into the rice and that rice shaped into a ball but I didn’t have enough rice for that. I’ll aspire to something more accurate, but in the meantime will be buying my onigiri from Hibino Day-by-Day, a Japanese Take-Out Pop-Up based here in Newburgh. I feel so lucky to have Hibino as my neighbor.
xo AV
Shiso-Steamed Fish with Black Rice
Ingredients
1 lb of white fish (fluke, flounder, cod, etc)
10-15 medium shiso leaves
Olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 c black rice
2 c water
Method
Make the rice:
Rinse the rice in a sieve, then add it to a saucepan along with 2 c water, and let it sit for 10 minutes.
Add a large pinch of salt, and a drizzle of olive oil and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Once simmering, lower the heat very low and cover with a lid. Set timer for 20 minutes and once elapsed, turn off heat and leave alone with the lid on for another 10 minutes. Then fluff with a fork.
Prepare the fish:
Heat oven to 325F. Line a sheet pan with aluminum foil and lay several leaves of shiso down, enough to line the bottom of the fish.
Season fish on both sides with salt and pepper and place on top of the shiso leaves. Drizzle all over with olive oil.
Cover the fish entirely with remaining shiso leaves and drizzle with a bit more olive oil. Wrap the sheet pan in another layer of aluminum foil and place in the oven for around 15-20 minutes, until cooked through. Note: Length of time will depend upon your piece of fish so feel free to test it with a fork and put it back in the oven if it seems like it needs a bit more time.
Serve:
Serve pieces of the fish with shiso leaves intact, alongside a spoonful of black rice.
Casual Shiso onigiri
This is a pretty improvisational snack so it seems a bit silly to write a recipe. After making the Shiso-Steamed Fish (above) I had leftover rice and shiso and fish, as well as leftover grilled skirt steak from a few days prior, so took my precious shiso leaves and layered rice and fish on top, along with torn pieces of roasted seaweed, and a drizzle of toasted sesame oil. I loved it so much I tried the same thing with thin slices of the steak. Depending on the size of the leaves, this is a one-to-two bite snack. It’s a stretch to call it “onigiri” but it does sort of remind me of this beloved Japanese hand-held snack. New favorite treat!
I will be trying this!