Sesame Crusted Fish, Burdock Salad, and Accidental Sushi

Last weekend, we welcomed a friend back into town after a two year absence. I decided to make a celebratory Japanese style dinner. I got a beautiful piece of Ono (a type of Tuna, wild caught in Hawaii,) cut it into three pieces, and marinated it in a mixture of Spring Onion (shown above,) Green Garlic, Chives, Soy Sauce, Fresh Ginger, Rice Wine Vinegar, Sesame Seeds, and Chili Garlic Sauce (very spicy.) It was a gorgeous marinade!

I let it marinate in the fridge all day.

I also made a Burdock Salad. Burdock (also known by its Japanese name, gobo) is an extremely healthy root vegetable that tastes more or less like sticks - which, in my opinion, is not necessarily a bad thing......

Here's the finished salad. I cut the Burdock into thin slices, boiled it for a few minutes, and strained it. To that I added Local Carrots, Bamboo Shoots, Local baby Tat-Soi (a type of Mustard Green,) Ginger, Soy Sauce, Rice Wine Vinegar, and Sesame Seeds. I let the salad marinate in the fridge for a few hours before we ate it. It's was really quite tasty - the marinade helped lessen the woody taste of the Burdock, but it still had a nice earthy quality.

Then....just a few hours before our friend arrived, she called to ask if she should bring anything.... and....it turns out she's a vegetarian! Oh no - what about the fish??

So we decided last minute to scrap the baked fish idea, and make sushi instead. We looked around and realized we had all the ingredients we needed except Soy Sauce and Wasabi, so we asked our friend to bring just those two things.

We baked one of the pieces of fish for sushi for Johnny and I. We also had Avocado, Mango, Local Shitake Mushrooms, Sweet Potatos, Local Carrots.....a lot of stuff, but nothing to add protein to our friends non-fish sushi. So we came up with the above concoction - mashed Japanese Sweet Potatos and Cashew Butter (which we happened to have,) Soy Sauce, and Chives. We added this paste to the sushi and - wow! It was awesome! I love it when unexpected things like this happen. The sushi was delicious (although I didn't get any pictures,) and we managed to spread the fish out over two nights.

We had lots of leftover Burdock Salad and Sweet Potatoes, so the next night we baked the fish and had approximately what the first meal was supposed to have been.

The remaining two pieces of fish had been marinading an extra day, so they were extra-super flavorful. Before I baked them I rolled them around in Sesame Seeds and then poured on some of the marinade.

And here's the finished meal!

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