Miso Caramel-Crusted Black Cod with Smoked Tuna Broth and Soba Noodles

For a long time, I've been wanting to make this dish.  This dish is the equivalent of candy.  People sometimes call this "fish candy", which when you consider it is true. 

I have read a lot of cookbooks with different variations/interpretations for this.  Nobu Matsuhisa of Nobu, uses 5 ingredients for the marinade: sake, mirin, miso, sugar and water.  James Walt of the famous Araxi restaurant in Whistler only uses 3 ingredients: sake, miso and sugar.  There's also Frank Pabst of Blue Water Cafe, a sister restaraunt of Araxi, who uses 4 ingredients(sake, mirin, soy sauce and sugar) but substitutes miso with soy sauce.

I can keep going with the different variations but there's always something that's prevalent in all recipes.  All the recipes mentioned above listed sake and sugar in the ingredient list.  They also call for the fish to be marinated in this asian concoction.

This dish is quite easy to make.  The only problem you might have with is the price of sake and cod and also some of the asian ingredients like dried kombu and bonito flakes.  Buying a bottle of sake should be fine especially if you do a lot of Japanese stock(I just used the one I had from last summer so that saved me some money).

Let's talk about cod.  This piece of fish is quite expensive!  The local fish mongers at my place sells this for around $16/lb!  If you can find a cheaper substitute for this fish, by all means substitute it.  The recipe will work for any kind of firm white fish.  While I was at the shop, I was so tempted to just buy the halibut belly for this.  In the end, I spent $32 for the fish alone.  Hmmm...

Trust me with this dish.  It's so good that you'll even want to eat the fish by itself.

Miso Caramel Marinade:

2 tbsp Sake

1/2 cup Miso

1 1/2 cup Fruit Sugar(Any kind of sugar should work.)

Smoked Tuna Broth with Soba Noodles:

4 cups Water

1 stalk Lemongrass, chopped

1 inch Ginger, chopped

1 small piece of Kombu

3/4 cup of Bonito Flakes, packed

3 tbsp Soy Sauce

1 1/2 tbsp Rice Vinegar

Soba Noodles

Shiitake Mushrooms(Didn't specify an amount for this cause I must've used a lot of it.  I love mushrooms)

2 fillets of Black Cod(You can use Halibut for this or even Halibut belly if you're just eating the fish by itself)

 

1.  Place your miso and sake in a double boiler(stainless steel bowl on top of a pot of boiling water) and mix well to incorporate the sake into the miso.

2.  Add the sugar and mix well.  

3.  After 1 minute, turn off the heat and keep mixing every now and then.  Leave your bowl on top of the pot for 10 more minutes so that the sugar dissolves.

4.  Let the caramel cool down before adding your fish in to marinate.  Marinate for at least 30 minutes.  If you're patient enough, you can marinate it for up to 2 days.
5.  Take out your fish and take off the excess caramel while making sure that there's still some left on the fish.
6.  Place your fish in a 400F oven for 20-25 minutes or until it starts to darken.
7.  While your fish is cooking, heat up 4 cups of water in a pot.  Also heat up a pot for your soba noodles to cook in.
8.  Add your ginger, lemongrass and kombu in the pot.  Let it simmer for 10 minutes. 
9.  Add your bonito flakes, soy sauce and rice vinegar to the pot.  let it reconstitute for about 10 minutes.
10.  Strain your broth into a bowl and discard all the strained ingredients.
11.  Place your broth back into the pot and let it boil.  Once boiling, add your shiitake mushrooms and cook it for around 2 minutes.
12.  In the other pot of water, cook your noodles until it's al dente. 
13.  Take out the noodle once it's ready and run it through cold water.
14.  Serve your noodles, cold, in a bowl with your hot broth and place your fish on top.

I also tried to just make the fish minus everything else, and it works great with rice or vegetable and potatoes but I thought that it might be missing something.  Maybe a sauce?  Nobu uses an orange tamarind sauce with his fish.  

Nah!  I'll just stick with the fish for now.

Crab with Mixed Herbs, Creme Fraiche and Phyllo Napoleon with Tomato Vinaigrette

Earlier tonight, I made dinner for my folks.  I made them Pork chops with apples and onions sauce.  Bleh!  I didn't like it at all but my parents said that it was really good.  That made me scratch my head.  Were they just being nice?  Maybe.  Eventhough I confessed to them and said, "I don't like it and I'm going to throw it away unless you guys want it", they gave it a try and they loved it. 

They must be just being nice to me.  I love my parents.

Here's a dish I did on Tuesday.  Saw it in one of my cookbooks that I've purchased.

Crabmeat
Basil
Cilantro
1 very ripe Tomato
olive oil
Frisee
1 sheet Phyllo Pastry
2 Avocados
1/3 cup of Whipping Cream
1 spoonful Sourcream
Lemon juice
Salt and Pepper

1.  Preheat oven to 300F
2.  Cut out 2.5" diametre circles from your phyllo sheet.  Place it on a bake tray lined with a baking sheet.  Bake for 3-5 minutes.
3.  Chop up your crab meat and mix it with a chiffonade of basil and some chopped cilantro and toss it in olive oil.  Season to taste.
4.  Dice your tomato and squeeze out the juice through a fine sieve.  Mix this with a few drops of lemon juice, a 1/4 cup of olive oil, salt and pepper.  Mix well.

5.  This will become your pseudo avocado creme fraiche.  Whip your cream until soft peaks have formed.  Fold in your sour cream.  Add your avocados and puree.  You should end up with a mascarpone like consistency.
6.  Serve and enjoy.

Pan Fried Prawns with Almonds, Thyme and Browned Butter and Garlic Puree

So on monday, I woke up quite early after sleeping for almost 12 hours.  I decided to go to SuperStore(this is the equivalent of a smaller Costco) at 8am and do some grocery shopping for my next "projects". 

I've been reading a couple of cookbooks and saw 3 recipes that caught my eye.  Each dish had a similar ingredient in them, namely phyllo and prawns.  I thought to myself that this might be a great idea to kill 3 birds with 2 stones and save a lot of money on ingredients.

Here's what you need for this recipe:

Jumbo Prawns
Thyme
Sliced Almonds
4 Cloves of Garlic
1/2 a cup of Whipping Cream
Olive Oil
Butter
Lemon Juice
Salt and Pepper

Note:  Everything else doesn't have a measurement and is done to taste.

1.  Place your crushed garlic in sauce pan of cold water and boil.  Once it boils, discard your water and cover your garlic with cold water again and repeat.  Do this 3 times.  This will help mellow down that strong garlicky taste(boiling it in milk once also works too).
2.  After discarding your water, add your 1/2 cup of cream to the pan and let it reduce on medium-low heat.  Season to taste.
3.  Once reduced, take it off the heat and let it cool.
4.  Onto the prawns.  Season it with salt and pepper.
5.  Heat your pan and add olive oil.
6.  When your pan is hot, add your prawns.  Cook it for about 30-45 seconds.
7.  Add your almonds and thyme leaves and cook it for an additional 1-2 minutes the most.  Be careful not to overcook your prawns or burn the butter.
8.  Serve and enjoy.