Nobu Matsuhisa is a celebrity Japanese chef with 12 Nobu restaurants around the world. After living in Peru, he developed his unique style of Nikkei cuisine that incorporates Peruvian ingredients into Japanese dishes and added miso glazed black cod to his repertoire.
This signature dish was further popularized in the 1980s by Wolfgang Puck at his fashionable Los Angeles restaurant, Chinois. It’s still on the menu today. If black cod or sablefish is not available, an oily fish like farm raised salmon makes a good substitute.
Ingredients
2 lbs black cod fillets
¼ cup sake
¼ cup mirin
¼ cup white miso paste
2 Tbl sugar (Nobu uses 4 tablespoons of sugar…for me this is too sweet)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 475°
Bring the sake and mirin to a boil and simmer for 20 seconds. Add the sugar and stir to dissolve. Turn the heat down to low and whisk in the miso paste. Let cool completely.
Pat the fillets dry and then slather them in the cooled miso marinade. Place the fish in a non-reactive dish and cover tightly. Nobu suggests curing the fillets for 2 or 3 days. Personally, I don’t like the way this alters the texture of the fish. 12 to 24 hours in the miso marinade is plenty for both the flavor and the optimal texture of the fish. If using Wolfgang Puck’s marinade, marinate the fish for 6 to 12 hours.
Line a baking pan with aluminum foil, grease it lightly, and place the marinated fish fillets on top. Cook until the black cod just begins to flake, basting several times with the pan juices.
Wolfgang Puck’s Miso Black Cod Marinade
He used a more savory marinade and I include it here as well.
Ingredients
2 Tbl soy sauce (Puck uses 4 Tbl)
½ cup red miso paste
½ cup mirin
6 Tbl sugar
5 garlic cloves, smashed
1 tsp of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
2 Tbl Shio Koji (my own addition, extra umami)
Great issue! You’ve reminded me that I used to make a much more rudimentary miso glaze on salmon occasionally. Now I’m going to try the REAL version–using one of these marinades–as soon as I can get my hands on some black cod. Isaacson & Stein in Fulton Market used to have it dependably, until they closed. Once in a blue moon I come across it at Burhops in Wilmette, but that’s rare.
We made the Wolfgang Puck recipe with a nice center cut of sushi-grade salmon. I cut the sugar in half and did go FULL UMAMI. Marinade from mid- morning until an hour before dinner. It was excellent!!!!
Thanks, Lisa for another great Cook Gazette