Our culinary project for the day is miso-marinated salmon. This is a centuries-old Japanese technique for preparing fish. Before the days of refrigeration, salmon was prepared this way for long journeys inland. It was brought to the United States recently by Nobu Matsuhisa, founder of the Nobu restaurant chain.
Basically, you take 1/2 cup of miso paste (I found mine at one of the Asian supermarkets in our town), 1/4 cup of sugar, 3 tablespoons of sake, 3 tablespoons of mirin, whisk it all together in a bowl, place the salmon filets in a bowl face down, and let them marinate for 6 to 24 hours.
We are heading out for the day to play, but will be coming home to a delicious dinner.
Update
This is definitely the way to cook salmon! We did not get home until late last night, so we ended up letting the salmon marinate in the miso mixture for over 24 hours. We took it out of the bowl, scraped the miso mixture off, and broiled it for a few minutes. The results were sublime. The fish gets a flavorful crust on the outside and remains silky on the inside. I topped it off with some tartar sauce, but ended up pushing it off the fish.
We served it with garlicky rice pilaf and asparagus with salt, pepper, and truffle dust.
