Miso Glazed Cod

I’ve been waiting to make Miso Glazed Cod ever since reading about it on my sister’s blog. However, I was a little overwhelmed by purchasing miso in the grocery store. I know how that sounds, given some of the ingredients you see regularly on this blog, but I am intimidated when I first start using a particular ingredient or cooking a particular culture’s cuisine. Anyway, to get to the point, through Food Buzz I got a pile of groceries for free from Asian Food Grocer, and decided to make miso one of those ingredients. Tonight I finally got a chance to use it. (On a side note, I got an awful lot of stuff for the $30 coupon I had so if you need Korean or Japanese ingredients, I strongly recommend checking them out).

I always wondered what miso would taste like. I mean, I know it is in various things I eat in Japanese restaurants, but I was unsure how much other ingredients masked the miso. If you are wondering, the salad dressing in a Japanrese restaurant smells a ton like miso, whereas miso soup I suspect smells more like dashi or seaweed or something, because the miso did not remind me of miso soup so much. Oh yeah, and I was using white miso, although I did get the darker kind too.

This fish was wonderful. My kids devoured it quickly, proclaiming how wonderful it was the whole while. I simmered the leftover glaze and served it on a wild rice pilaf, and that also went over well. In short, this was an extremely easy, extremely tasty, the sum is greater than its parts sort of meal.

Miso Glazed Cod

The Food You Crave by Ellie Krieger

• 4 black cod fillets, or regular cod fillets (I used halibut and tilapia, what I had in the freezer)
• 1/3 cup blond or white miso (mine was not low sodium, as Krieger suggests)
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar, to taste
• 2 t toasted sesame oil
• 2 T mirin (Japanese cooking wine), to taste

Rinse fish fillets and dry thoroughly by pressing with paper towels. Combine miso, brown sugar, sesame oil and mirin and stir well until brown sugar is fully dissolved. I tasted mine at this point and increased the mirin and brown sugar, perhaps because my miso was not low sodium or because I have a super sweet tooth.

Brush about 2 tablespoons miso glaze on the tops and bottoms of each fish fillet. Marinate for at least 30 minutes, or up to 1 1/2 hours. Krieger uses the broiler for this dish and my sister did it all on stove top. I compromised in the middle and pan seared the fish but finished them in the oven. Preheat the over to 375 F. Place a large nonstick skillet over mediumheat and let it get quite hot (try not to worry about the fumes–if I did this every night I would be more concerned. Place the fish in the pan–if they are of varying thickness, start with the thicker ones Flip when browned and brush with extra glaze. Flip again when browned on the other side and brush again with glaze, and transfer to the oven. Depending on the thickness of your fish, bake for 4-6 more minutes (I am new at fish–if that sounds wrong to you, trust your instincts for your fish).

While the fish is baking, scrape the remaining marinade into a small (preferably nonstick) saucepan. Heat it to simmering and simmer for a few minutes–this is basically to kill any germs from brushing on the fish and concentrate the flavors.

Serve with a rice pilaf, and drizzle the simmered sauce over the pilaf and fish.