The 10 -minute dinner and worthy of restaurants that I prepare several times a month

Many years ago, when my husband and I visited my parents in Hong Kong, we had lunch in an indescribable Japanese restaurant located in the basement of a shopping center. My husband was skeptical, but I had already eaten there and I knew that the food was good. We were there for one thing and only one thing: the Miso black cod. Marinated in a salty-soft mixture of Miso white, sake, mirin and soy sauce, the grilled fish has arrived sparkling and tender, its flesh moves easily with the sweetest thumbs up of our baguettes. Each bite was deeply tasty, with a hazelnut of Miso and a floral sweetness of the sake and the Mirin.

When I returned to New York, I tried to recreate the dish and I found many iterations on the internet. I was not surprised: Miso Black Cod exploded in popularity after the Japanese chef Nobu Matsuhisa served him in his restaurant Tribeca in the 1990s. “The Siclé in soy fish was a must, even called in the first criticisms of the restaurant,” noted the writer Hugh Merwin New York Magazine In 2014. “A kind of fame ensued, and today, black cod with miso is essentially a shorthand for the Nobu Empire itself.”

Although Matsuhisa did not invent the dish – he told Merwin that his preparation is a riff on a Japanese tradition of fish healing in sake lees – he popularized it among restaurant lovers and cooks at home. Fortunately, the dish is deceptively easy to do. So simple, in fact, that my husband and I do it regularly: all you have to do is whips together a marinade of red or white miso paste, sake, mirin, soy sauce, oil and sugar, then marinate the fish. You can marinate the fish for as little as 30 minutes or as long as two days, which makes it an excellent meal during the week or the dinner of the night.

A note on the fish: despite its name, the black cod is not a real cod, but a different species entirely – more precisely known as the sand. Its flesh is tender and buttered, unlike the lean and firm texture of the Atlantic or the Pacific cod. This wealth is the key to the success of this recipe. Although you can try other fish, it is better with something fat, like black cod – or, more accessible, salmon.

The Miso Black Cod recipe from the former publisher of Serial Eats, which he published on the site in 2013, is the version that I have been doing for as long as I remember. Kenji recommends toasting the fish, but if you don’t have a grill or you don’t want to preheat the oven, you can do what I do and launch the heat on the fryer. If you opt for the air frying road, keep an eye on the fish: it usually takes about eight minutes for the fish to finish cooking, but the timing will depend on the size of your nets. Served with rice and sautéed green vegetables, it allows a simple and satisfactory meal – and a meal worthy of restaurants.