Black Cod with Miso and Spinach with Sesame Dressing

*Post by Angela.

As some of you may remember, I've been on a mission to find a seafood preparation I could make at home and have Mark rave over. I decided to try out this Nobu-style black cod with miso recipe, which was quite the rage a few years ago. Through epicurious, I matched it up with a spinach side, and served both with some steamed white rice. I thought for sure that the sweetness of the marinade would win Mark over, but at the end of the day, he was still kind of "meh" about fish, though he enjoyed the sesame dressing for the spinach. I really liked it, though, so if you're a seafood lover, give it a try.

List of ingredients for the fish:

• 1/2 cup sake
• 3/4 cup mirin
• 2 cups white miso paste (white miso is the sweet kind, so it's an absolute must)
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 2 lbs black cod, a.k.a. sablefish, filets

This may turn some people off, but I had to start the prep for the fish two days prior to when we wanted to eat it. First I brought the sake and mirin to a boil in a small saucepan over medium high heat. I let the alcohol boil off (about half a minute), then reduced the heat and added the miso paste, stirring until it had dissolved completely. I turned the heat back up a little, added the sugar, stirred until it had dissolved, then removed the pan from the heat to let it cool to room temp.

I patted the black cod filets dry with a paper towel, then put them in a container and poured most of the the now-cooled marinade over top (I reserved about a 1/2 cup for plating purposes). I covered the container, then nestled it away in the fridge for the next 2 days.

List of ingredients for the spinach:

• 2 lbs baby spinach, trimmed
• 2 tbsp sesame seeds, lightly toasted
• 1/4 cup peanut oil
• 1 1/2 tbsp unseasoned rice vinegar
• 2 tbsp mirin
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp Asian sesame oil
• 1/8 tsp salt

Before I started cooking the fish two days later, I prepared the spinach. I washed the baby spinach and shook it slightly dry, then put it in a big pot to wilt down over medium heat. It's amazing how much 2 lbs of spinach shrinks! Once it was just wilted, I put it in a colander, rinsed it with cold water and drained it well. I placed the spinach on a couple of paper towels and did my best to squeeze all the excess moisture out of it. Once the spinach was as dry as I could get it, I gave it a coarse chop.

For the sauce, I blended together two tsp of the sesame seeds, the peanut oil, vinegar, mirin, soy sauce, sesame oil, and salt, then moved back to the fish.

I preheated the oven to 400 degrees and took the filets out of the marinade and shook off the excess. I threw them on a grill pan over high heat for about 3-4 minutes per side, just until they had browned up a little.

I removed the filets to a baking sheet and finished them off in the oven for about 12-15 minutes, until flaky and opaque. Mark did the plating honors, mounding the spinach into a little disk and topping it with the sesame dressing and leftover sesame seeds, and serving the fish with a bit of the reserved miso sauce (the stuff that I didn't put fish in for two days) and steamed white rice from the rice cooker.

I thought the meal was really tasty - the sweetness in the marinade was much more subtle than I expected, but was really infused throughout the fish, and I think it would probably work well with just about any type of fish. And the sesame dressing for the spinach was really deliciously nutty. I'll be making this again for sure...just not for Mark.

Comments

[Evan]

That plate looks amazing with the sauce drizzled around. Very professional looking. I love black cod and have never cooked with it. I think i need to make that spinach sauce for the kale in the fridge

[Angela]

Evan-
Yeah, Mark's been getting better and better at the plating thing. Now I don't even try. I've never cooked with black cod, either, but the seafood selection in L.A. is amazing, so I'll probably be experimenting with a lot of different types of fish. I bet the sesame sauce would be WONDERFUL with the kale, which is one of my new favorite foods.

[Lisa]

Wow this looks really delicious. I sometimes have to force myself to eat fish bc I don't really know many tasty recipes using something like cod. Now I just need to find some white miso paste...

[Angela]

Lisa-
Yeah, it's pretty easy, too (just needs time to marinate)! I liked this a lot, even if Mark didn't love it.