Sake lee and miso marinated grilled salmon 鮭のハラスの粕味噌焼

This is a variation of sake lee marinated grilled fish. The usual marinade for this kind of dish is made of mostly sake lee with  a small  amount of miso. This past new year, however, I made two kinds of herring roe; one of which was marinated in the mixture of sake lee and miso. Although this marinade is a mixture of miso, sake lee and sake, it differs from the one described above in that it has much more miso. After I removed the herring roe from this marinade, I used it for fish and vegetables. I realized I have not posted it, so I used it again for my usual filet of salmon, belly portion (or "harasu" ハラス) . I served the marinated salmon belly with my cucumber onion salad as a first small dish for the evening.

1. I scaled the skin (I always have to do this since it is usually not properly scaled at the store. We suspect this is because not many people enjoy the skin as we do so the fish mongers don't "waste their time" carefully scaling it since the skin will generally be discarded). I then separated the belly portion.
2. In a small ziploc bag, I put a small amount of the sake lee miso marinade and pressed to spread making a thin layer. I then put in the salmon, and added more marinade on the side which did not already have the marinade. I pressed and spread the marinade to cover the fish.
3. After sealing the bag, I kept it in the refrigerator for a few days to a max of 1 week.
4. Just before grilling, I took the fish out and washed it in cold running water to remove the marinade and patted it dry using sheets of paper towel.
5. I grilled this in the toaster oven but I had be very careful not to burn the skin too much. I also moved the toaster oven under the hood of the stove since it creates some smoke. I started from the meat side and them cooked the skin side so that when finished, the skin was crispy.

Although we like salmon belly just salted and grilled, the marination adds subtle flavors and a different texture which is very nice for a change.