Like us, our friend Kristen adores Mediterranean, Middle/Near Eastern and North African foods. We haven’t seen her much since she was married so it was a real treat to have her spend the evening with us recently. Whenever she’s here, we hang out in the kitchen: cooking, snacking, sipping wine and caching up with the latest events of our lives. We always finish dinner late because there’s so much to talk about… and to eat. This time, it was all about North African cooking. This recipe, then, comes from Tess Mallos’ lovely book, North African Cooking (normally I’d put the link to Amazon, but as you know, we’re in California, so Amazon just dropped our affiliate agreement. Not that it really matters financially, since we never make a dime on it. But I’m sure that some of you like to look at the books we use. Sorry.)

broiled corvina in charmoula marinade

I had already bought a couple pounds of Panamanian wild caught corvina steaks from our favorite fish market, Sun Fat in the Mission. And since Kristen and I talked before she arrived, I had also bought a jar of preserved lemons at a Middle Eastern store in the same area, already thinking we might need them for the dinner feast.

After a few focused minutes browsing the book, I landed on this recipe using charmoula marinade. Tess calls for tuna here, but the wild corvina turned out to be a perfect substitute. Corvina has a white and firm flesh with a delicate flavor, perfect for grilling or broiling, and very tasty.

The recipe calls for marinating the fish for a minimum of two hours and up to overnight. We didn’t have that much time, so we skimped and gave it only twenty minutes. Nevertheless, this dish came out as yummy as it can be. I guess everything is an adaptation here because we also tweaked the amount of ingredients in the sauce to adjust it to our tastes.

broiled corvina in charmoula marinade

2 lbs wild corvina steaks, rinsed and pat dried
1 small preserved lemon, seeds removed
2 large cloves garlic
½ cup chopped cilantro
¼ cup chopped Italian parsley
¾ tsp sweet paprika
Large pinch saffron threads
¾ tsp ground cumin
Cayenne pepper to taste
Kosher salt
Juice of a large lemon
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

To make charmoula marinade, put everything except fish in food processor and blend to a paste.

Arrange corvina steaks on a glass baking dish then coat with charmoula sauce and let marinate for about 20 minutes (or more).

Set oven to broil.

Adjust oven rack to be as close as possible to the heat. Broil fish for about 10 minutes.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 500F for another 5 to 8 minutes. Check for doneness by piercing the thickest part of the fish. Remove from oven. Let rest for 5 minutes and serve with more preserved lemon and any leftover charmoula marinade. We had this with plain couscous and sautéed kale from our community garden plot.

broiled corvina in charmoula marinade is great with couscous and kale