Soy-Grilled Mahi Mahi with Korean Dipping Sauce

I bought some Mahi Mahi from Costco a while back (individually packaged and frozen) and have been looking for some tasty recipes that could pass the my-husband-doesn’t-like-fish-but-I-do challenge at my house.  I have really, really wanted that man of mine to change his evil ways and eat more fish.  Jesus ate fish; he was always eating fish.  Every time you turn around in the Four Gospels Jesus was eating fish.  Good grief, he even fed a total of 7,000 people fish! (top THAT Chef Irvine, Mr. Dinner Impossible)  So, why can’t my guy eat fish, especially nice meaty fish like halibut or mahi mahi?

That fish in the freezer kept calling to me, in Ellen Degeneres’ whale voice imitation…”Terri, come get me out of the freezer and make something delicious out of meeeeee……”.  If you saw my freezer, you’d understand why there may really be voices coming out of it.  The voices may or may not have anything to do with the fact John once used the freezer as a saw horse.  Yeppers; sawed the most amazing straight line through the wood he was sawing AND the lid to the freezer.  I didn’t say much about that little adventure, I just made sure that on Father’s Day John got some nice sturdy saw horses.  The kind of saw horses that don’t have any other function or purpose other than to hold wood while someone practices their sawing skills. You know, no other purpose like freezing foods that need to be frozen and keeping frozen foods frozen.

A few days ago I finally listened to the fish voices coming from the freezer and decided that it was high time for me to get started on making something wonderful with that mahi mahi.  I visited Kalyn’s Kitchen and browsed through her collection of fish recipes.  Found a few dandies, too.  John will eat pretty much anything if it has some sort of Asian word or feel attached to it.  He really likes Korean, so I figured that he would feel fairly amenable towards eating mahi mahi since soy sauce, which was used as the base for a Korean dipping sauce, was going to be involved.

As sides I made some wonderful stir-fried vegetables and some coconut rice.  Everything was delicious and I especially enjoyed lightly dipping the rice into the Korean sauce, scrumptious.  Even Mr. I-don’t-eat-fish gobbled this meal right down.

Although the recipe calls for the fish to be cooked on a grill, I cooked it indoors in a grill pan on the top of my stove.  This worked well except that the juices which would have fallen through the grill grates on the outdoor grill, pooled in the bottom of the pan and had to be watched carefully because they burned quite easily.  I don’t have grill skills, so I didn’t want to experiment on pieces of pricey fish.  I know that I need to stop running away from the grill or passing it off as man’s work, but in all honesty cooking on the grill scares me.  Somehow my life-long mantra “face your fear” falls away into the lure of “is there another way out?”.

So be braver than me and cook this fish on your outdoor grill.  Let me know how it turns out for you.  Give me courage to try it for myself.

I give coudos and credit to Kalyn of Kalyn’s Kitchen for this recipe.  She is the fount of all knowledge for healthy eating, following the South Beach diet.  Check out her site for great South Beach style recipes.

Soy-Grilled Mahi Mahi With Korean Dipping Sauce
Recipe slightly adapted by Terri @ that’s some good cookin’
Printable Recipe

• 2 pieces Mahi Mahi 

 Sauce/Marinade 

• 1/4 cup soy sauce (I used low sodium soy sauce)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons rice vinegar (not seasoned)
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons Splenda or brown sugar (I used brown sugar)
• 1 green onion, thinly sliced
• 1 teaspoon garlic puree or finely minced garlic (I grated garlic cloves on a microplane–worked very well)
• pinch of cayenne pepper or a dash of hot sauce

Directions

1. In a small bowl, combine soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, Splenda or brown sugar, green onion garlic puree and cayenne or hot sauce. 
2. Put the two pieces of Mahi Mahi in a ziploc bag along with half of the marinade.  Marinate at room temperature for 15 minutes-1 hour.  (I marinated mine for about an hour because I got busy with preparing the rest of the dinner.  It worked very well.)
3. Spray gril with non-stick cooking spray or wipe with olive oil.  Preheat grill to medium-high (you can only hold your hand there 2-3 seconds.)
4. Put fish on grill with stop side down and grill 2-3 minutes (until you can see grill marks–lift fish to see marks if necessary).  Rotate fish 45-degrees on same side and cook 2-3 minutes more to get criss-cross marks.
5. Turn fish over and cook about 3-4 minutes more.  Total cooking time will not be more than 8-10 minutes.  The fish should feel barely firm when it’s done; don’t overcook.  Serve hot, with dipping sauce on the side.

Good sides for this fish are simple stir-fried vegetables and coconut rice.