Miso Marinated Black Cod

To my taste, this is hands down the best preparation of black cod. Its natural fattiness combines so well with the sweet and salty sauce. They serve it at high end-ish Japanese restaurants, but you can easily make it at home.

In fact, I thought it would be more hassle since almost all the recipes I found online suggested marinating black cod in miso for 2-3 days. Way to long for me, even though I’m not at all a lazy cook and usually plan my dinners ahead. Still, the idea of marinating something as delicate as black cod in such a strong agent as miso paste and for such long time didn’t seem right to me. Moreover, the fillet I got was quite small and no more than 1-inch-thick, so and I figured out that 3-4 hours of marinating should be quite enough.

And so I did and didn’t regret. The fish turned out spectacular. Better than at Nishino, was my husband’s verdict. With Nishino being our favorite Japanese place in Seattle, should I say I was very flattered?

Ok, here’s the recipe. You will need:

• 1 lb skinless black cod (aka sablefish, so don’t confuse it with true cod or ling cod)
• ¼ cup sake
• ¼ cup mirin (I used similar in flavor very basic Chinese Michiu/mijiu rice wine; I think you can take Shaoxing instead)
• 2.5 Tbsp sugar
• 3 heaping Tbsp or a bit under 1/3 cup shiro miso (white miso)

Put sake, mirin and sugar in a small pot and bring to a simmer. Add miso and stir it with a whisk until it’s completely dissolved. Remove the mixture from the heat and let cool to room temperature.

Cut the fish into serving size pieces. Place in a container in one layer. Cover all over with the marinade and let sit there for 3.5-4 hours. Every now and then, spoon the marinade from the sides of the container and onto the fish so it always stays covered. Turn the fish over from time to time as well so it gets marinated all through.

Preheat the oven to F400. Place an oven rack to the second shelf from the top. Line a baking sheet or shallow baking dish with foil and spray lightly with oil. Remove the fish from the marinade and gently scrape off the excess of the marinade with a spatula or the back of a knife. Arrange the fish pieces on the foil in one layer and put in the oven.

Immediately switch the oven to broil (I have two options, medium and high, and I put it on high). Cook for about 5-6 minutes on until the fish gets golden brown on top. Keep a close eye on the fish through the oven window. As a rule, broilers are very potent devices and can burn things in mere seconds. The cod make create some smoke while cooking, with all that fat sizzling under a hot coil, so have your hood running on high and windows open.

Remove the fish from the oven and with a sharp-edged spatula transfer it to a serving platter. Serve right away.

Comments

[Elli Lesch]

Hello,

I believe you used to have a website called seattlecookingspree.net. I bookmarked a recipe of yours, I believe it was titled Brined Herring or Mackerel. Any chance you could re-post it?

Now that I have moved out of my family home, this is one of the dishes I miss the most and your recipe is very close to how my family would eat it.