Toastmaster

One Example

There are modern day explorers–culinary Cousteaus–who roam cities, exploring different cuisines one adventure/restaurant at a time. One such culinary explorer who is eating his way through Tokyo’s ramen shops one shop at a time is Nate at Ramenate. His blog offers a great glimpse into one of Japan’s culinary treasures, ramen, and offers plenty of ramen porn for you to salivate over.

Other such explorers exist in CA as well, such as the Great Taco Hunt blog and others.

Finished Product

Kirala, is a Japanese Restaurant in Berkeley, CA where I learned to appreciate seafood. Prior to my first bite of Sushi there, I had never been fond of Seafood and barely ate any at all except for the occasional Fillet-o-Fish (does that even count as seafood?). Nearly 11 years later, seafood (particularly fish) makes up a large portion of my diet.

It didn’t take long before I became a regular at Kirala and the one dish I almost always ordered was the “Butterfish” or Miso Marinated Gindara (a.k.a, Black Cod or Butterfish), a dish Kirala and their robata masters had perfected. Since moving out of the Bay Area, I’ve been searching for a worthy equivalent to Kirala’s Butterfish and I was starting to lose hope until I decided to attempt to create my own using some extra Gindara we had from nabemono the night before.

My cooking technique was developed based on this photo, which I saw on Harris Salat’s Blog. I based my miso marinade on this (purported) Nobu recipe using ingredients I had on hand at home. Specifically, my marinade was approximately:

3 heaping tbsps light (smooth) miso
1.5 tbsp dark sesame seed oil
1 tbsp shoyu (soy sauce)
1.5 tbsp flavored (for sushi) rice wine vinegar

Before

Adjust the marinade to taste and increase quantities as appropriate so that there’s enough to coat all of your fish. Mix until smooth and coat the fish. I coated the fish and let it marinate for approximately 1 hour (which seemed to be enough). I then broiled the skewered fish with the skin side facing the flame in the broiler for approximately 8 minutes before flipping the fish to cook the other side for a little over 2 minutes. The recipe resulted in extremely juicy and flavorful fish which melts in your mouth like butter, hence the name “butterfish.”

Note: It’s important to ensure the flame from the broiler is at least 2 to 3 inches away from the fish or the fish will burn. Also, if you’re using bamboo skewers, make sure to soak them for at least 30 minutes before using them to prevent them from burning (I didn’t soak them long enough as evidenced by the burnt skewers in the pictures).

After

Next time I may try to marinate the fish longer using a marinade that is not as acidic (no vinegar) and more traditional (i.e., similar to the Nobu recipe linked to above). I have a feeling “next time” is right around the corner as I’m already craving butterfish.

Let me know how it goes if you happen to try this recipe.

Given that I enjoy “culinary pursuits”, I’ve decided to try and learn more about Japanese Cuisine, attempt various recipes and incorporate more of it into our diet at home. So far, I’ve identified a few blogs (here, here, here, and here) that provide good tips, explanations and culinary inspiration and recently purchased this cookbook based on Harris Salat’s recommendation (I highly recommend his blog, The Japanese Food Report).

(I will be filing posts related to my food encounters and experiments and Japanese Cuisine under the “Culinary Pursuits” category.)