Gin Fish

There really isn’t much more that I love than alcohol and seafood. Honestly, name a more iconic duo…I’ll wait.
Cold beer and fish ‘n’ chips, shrimp and white wine, abalone and sake…

See what I mean?

Anyway, recently I went on a little spearfishing trip and came home with a pair of beautiful kingfish, one of my absolute favourite fish.

I love kingfish so much because they’re particularly fun to catch, and also taste REALLY good, both cooked and raw. In fact, kingfish sashimi would seriously be my all time favourite raw fish.

I brought my kingfish home, sliced up the fillets, and as far as I was concerned at the time, this beautifully oily, white flesh was destined for greater things than simply ending up in the fry pan.

I skinned the fillets and trimmed up some of the edges and the bloodline.

Typically, I’d make sure the fillets are nice and chilled then simply thinly slice and serve with some soy — easy and delicious. While this is certainly an option I would recommend, I was entertaining and needed a little more of an interesting touch to the dish. This is when I grabbed my favourite bottle of gin.

I won’t get too science-y today, but simply put, alcohol is a hydrophilic substance just like salt and sugar, so when it comes in contact with other liquids (i.e. the wet flesh of a fish), it wants to draw out and attract the moisture, thus dehydrating the meat and ‘curing’ the fish!

Not only does it give the fish a fantastic texture, but using spirits like gin is a great way to impart interesting flavours into fish. You could even try curing trout with whisky before smoking it!

I took the kingfish fillets and cured them with salt, sugar, and gin for about 24 hours, turning the fillets at the halfway point. After they were done, I gave them a quick pat down with paper towel and then thinly sliced them. This ended up being one of the entrées for a beautiful dinner party with a big group of my closest friends. We even used the salty, sweet, gin juice left over from the curing as a dipping sauce. Stunning.

Have a go at curing fish next time that you’re entertaining friends, or just for a nice dinner at home! I encourage you to get experimental with different types of fish that might be available to you, and of course different types of gin and spirits.

Just have a think about the flavour combo and make sure they’re going to match—and most importantly, choose nothing but the freshest fish!

For 1 medium sized fillet of kingfish, I used:
1 Kingfish fillet
150mls gin
¼ cup white sugar
¼ flaky sea salt

The day before serving:

Skin your fillet and trim the edges, then put it into a tray and douse the fillet in the gin, then evenly sprinkle with the salt and sugar on both sides.
Turn after about 12 hours.

The day of:
Pat down the fillet with a paper towel. The salt and sugar should have turned to liquid, so no need to rinse it off.

Slice about 3-4mm thick and arrange nicely on a platter.

The gin juice makes a beautiful dipping sauce — feel free to add some finely chopped spring onion and green chilli.

Enjoy!