DSC_0400One of my favorite farmer’s market buys this fall was a tub of red miso, which I’d heard a lot about but not eaten much outside of miso soup from takeout Asian places. It’s turned out to be one of the most easy to use ingredients in my fridge; you can literally just add water and make a sauce for almost anything with it. This dish was close to that easy and ended up being kind of a mashup of the miso chicken wings and glazed salmon that I’ve made previously.

Using a dense, meaty fish like mahi or tuna means that it will stand up to heat well and you can cook it quickly. For this dinner, I made a sweet and salty glaze with miso and mirin first, then marinated the fish in it while the oven preheated to 500. Once your oven is preheated, I let it pull double-duty and cooked the cauliflower pictured above. With some salt and olive oil, you’ve got a respectable side dish.

Once I was ready to go with the fish, I blackened it for a few minutes in a smoking-hot skillet and then put it in the oven with the rest of the glaze for another five. Voila, I had dinner in about 45 minutes, and for most of that time I wasn’t doing anything. I highly recommend getting some miso so your dinners can be this easy too.

DSC_0413 DSC_0393

Ingredients

1 6-8 oz. mahi mahi steak (or tuna or similarly meaty fish)

1/4 cup red miso

3 tablespoons mirin (or sake, or water with a little honey)

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 clove garlic, smashed

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Process

  1. Whisk together miso, mirin and cayenne pepper until the miso has thinned out to a thick liquid. Add smashed garlic clove and pour the mixture into a nonreactive dish or ziploc bag. Let stand on counter for 30 minutes or so, or if your fish is chilled, until it comes to room temperature.
  2. Heat oven to 500 degrees. Heat an oven-proof pan over medium-high heat until very hot. Remove the fish from the marinade and place it in the pan, searing it until blackened, about 2-3 minutes per side. After you’ve flipped it, pour the remaining marinade/glaze over the fish.
  3. Place the skillet in the oven for another 5 minutes or so, just until a sharp knife meets no resistance when inserted into the thickest part of the fish.
Advertisement