Pan Seared Fresh Fish with a Ginger Garlic Spring Onion Sauce

1kg fresh fish cut into 200 gram portions
60ml extra virgin olive oil
1 tbs butter optional
salt and cracked pepper

Sauce
11/2 cups hot water
1 cup sugar syrup
1 cup Soya sauce
1/4 cup sake
1/4 cup oyster sauce
1 tbs Worcestershire sauce
3 cm fresh ginger – peeled and finely diced
4 medium cloves garlic – diced
1 bunch fresh coriander – roots and all – chopped
1 tsp dried red pepper (or 1 small red chilli pepper diced)
2 spring onions finely sliced

Procedure
Pound the ginger, garlic, coriander and red pepper to a paste using a mortar and pestle or alternatively place all the ingredients in a food processor and blend to a smooth paste. Add the water, sugar syrup, soya sauce, sake, oyster and Worcestershire sauce. Since the sauce keeps for weeks in the refrigerator, make this in advance and keep on hand. 

Place the fish fillets, skin side down onto a lightly greased oven tray (line with tin foil to reduce the clean-up) and drizzle each piece with a teaspoon of olive oil and season with salt and pepper.  Place into a pre-heated oven (200 degrees Celsius) for 12 minutes or until each fillet is cooked through.  As the fish is cooking bring the sauce to the boil, add the spring onion at the last minute and spoon over the individual servings of the fish. Ideally, accompany the fish with steamed rice.

Note
As an alternative to cooking the fish in the oven, the fish may be pan seared:
Heat a little olive oil in a pan to a shimmer then drop 1/2 tbs of butter.  Flour the fish and lay the fish fillet skin side down onto the butter before it melts cook both sides to golden brown.

Wine
Patutahi Gewurztraminer 2003 Gisborne New Zealand.
Golden rich hued wine with a spicy tang. Concentrated lush fruit flavours with a subtle sweetness underlying the acids. Grapefruit and spice nose with a good palate weight. This aromatic richly ripe gewürztraminer will partner well with the heat and spice of the sauce in this dish. Drink a little warmer than usual to let the true character of the wine come forward.

Serves 4

Degree of Difficulty 2