Grilled marinated salmon 鮭の祐庵やき

Grilled marinated fish dishes are fairly common in Japanese cooking. Mark's book has Sweet miso marinated fish 魚の西京漬け (p61). Many of the fish popular in Japan are not readily available in the U.S. Among the rather limited varieties of fresh fish available in our neighborhood grocery stores, we like salmon.  It is consistently available and reasonably fresh. We often just salt it and grill or sauté (finish in the oven). We particularly like a crispy skin and I make sure that the skin gets crispy. You could use cod, sword fish, Chilean sea bass or other similar types of fish instead.

This time, I used a liquid marinade called "Yuuan-ji" 祐庵地 which is a classic Japanese marinade for grilling. There are some variations but we do not like an overly sweet taste, so I use about equal amounts of mirin, sake and twice the amount of soy sauce (1:1:2) (the classic recipe may call for more mirin).  Combine the ingredients in a small pan and let it come to a boil to remove the alcohol and to amalgamate the tastes. Let it cool and then refrigerate. Marinate salmon for 20-30 minutes (if you marinate too long, you tend to lose the actual taste of the fish and everything starts to taste like the marinade). Grill until the skin is crispy and the meat is cooked through.

I made pencil asparagus as an accompaniment. Sauté minced onion, garlic, sliced Shiitake mushroom and pencil asparagus in small amount of melted butter. Add a small amount of the marinade and let it cook down until almost all liquid is gone about 2-3 minutes. The asparagus should still be a bit crispy.