Miso Glazed Fish

My first taste of miso cod was at Nobu in NYC.  It simply melts in your mouth, "like butter".  During one of our visits to Nobu, we saw Meg Ryan, Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix.  It was before the news of their (Meg and Russell’s) affair broke.  We didn’t even know what we were witnessing.  I would never make it as a reporter at TMZ. 

My friend Heather, long time reader, first time recipe donor, passed along this recipe which was from a friend’s brother or something like that.  Anyways, good recipes are shared like this one.  I had tried a similar recipe before and it did not receive rave reviews.  This one did!  Invest some time in finding these ingredients and keep ‘em around.



Miso glazed fish
Salmon (left) and Cod (right)

Ingredients:

1.      1/3 cup sake

2.      1/3 cup mirin (sweet Japanese rice wine)

3.      1/3 cup white or light yellow miso (fermented soybean paste)

4.      3 tablespoons brown sugar, packed – plus a little extra for browning at the end

5.      2 tablespoons soy sauce

6.      4 6-ounce sea bass, salmon or cod fillets (each about 3/4 inch thick)

Mix first 5 ingredients in shallow glass baking dish. Add fish and turn to coat. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours and up to 6 hours (I have also seen recipes that say up to 48 hours – for the record, I marinated the fish for 6 hours).

You can either bake or broil the fish.  I chose to bake it at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes. First, remove the fish from the marinade and place on a baking dish that is lightly sprayed with non-stick oil.  Place in the oven to bake.  Once it was firm, I removed, sprinkled a little more brown sugar on top, reset my oven to broil and then returned the fish to the oven to caramelize the sugar on top.  It gives it a nice, sweet, golden topping.  (I have heard that McDonald’s puts a thin layer of sugar on its buns so that during the toasting process, the buns turn golden brown and have a hint of sweetness too.  A little meaningless trivia for you today.) 

If you choose to broil the fish, preheat broiler. Remove fish from marinade. Place fish on rimmed baking sheet. With broiler door slightly open, broil fish 6 inches from heat source until just opaque in center, about 6 minutes. Transfer to plates.