Miso-Glazed Salmon

Since I have a two-pound bag of miso sitting in the fridge, I decided to look for some more miso recipes.  Other than miso soup (which I plan on making soon!), the most common recipe I saw was miso-glazed salmon.  There were many different variations, so I just picked one and went with it. 

Miso-Glazed Salmon

Ingredients:

• 1-2 pounds of thick salmon fillets
• 1/2 cup miso (I used red miso)
• 1/4 cup Sake, or dry cocktail sherry
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons light brown sugar
• 1/2 Tablespoon soy sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon unseasoned rice vinegar
• 1 to 2 teaspoons sesame oil

Directions:

1. In a small bowl blend miso, sake (or cocktail sherry), brown sugar, soy sauce, and vinegar until smooth.
2. Set aside 1/3 cup of marinade/spread.
3. Rub salmon with 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of sesame oil and place in a shallow non-reactive dish.  Pour or spread remaining sauce over the salmon and place in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours, or up to 6 to 8 hours.
4. Pre-heat oven broiler. Add salmon skin side down in the broiler and brush or spoon the reserved marinade onto the salmon.
5. Broil for 7-8 minutes,or until fish fillet is no longer opaque looking (insert knife tip into thickest part and peek to check.) The salmon should have a dark glaze on the top.

Notes:
I have several notes on this one. 

First, I had a difficult time mixing the sauce together, and I didn't want to get my blender dirty for a fairly small amount.  Then I remembered something I had seen while browsing some cooking web sites last week.  Most blender bottoms will screw on to a Mason jar and fit perfectly.  I tried it for this recipe and it worked like a charm. 

Second, as mentioned in the original recipe, the marinating step is optional.  I marinated ours for about an hour, but I think it would have been fine without.

It took significantly longer than 7-8 minutes for the salmon to be cooked for me.  I'm pretty sure this is my fault, because I left the oven rack in the middle position instead of closer to the top.  Because the sauce was starting to crisp up, I switched the oven to bake and baked it for about 8-10 minute at 400 before it was cooked through.

The sauce was very salty, and I probably put it on a little too thick.  It's really tasty though, and it goes particularly well with green beans.

The rice I used is a combination white and brown rice that sounded interesting.  It's pretty good, but it takes 40 minutes to cook, which seems much longer than most other rices I've bought.  I'll probably just buy jasmine rice next time.

Comments

[Andrew]

Red miso rocks, but half a cup seems like a lot. Maybe not marinating the fish will solve the salt issue. Did you use full sodium soy sauce? Did you also season the fish? Was the white rice in the mixture over done?

[Sara]

That looks really good! I love anything coated in miso, but I've never used red miso before.

[jkelber]

Andrew: The original recipe called for 1 cup of miso. I cut the recipe in half based on a comment from the page I snagged it from. I did use full sodium soy sauce, but the only seasoning the fish got was according to the recipe (sesame oil and the miso glaze). The white rice in the mixture was fine, it just took a long time to cook.