Miso Sauce

When I lived in Japan my favorite food was Katsu. Katsu likely is Japanese shorthand for cutlet (Katsu-retto). What makes the dish extraordinary is the sauce. It is a mixture of Japanese and European -- the Japanese word for this cuisine is YoShoku (Yoo means Western and Shoku means food).

The sauce is like molasses or barbecue sauce but it also has Japanese flavors

Recently I came across a recipe for miso katsu sauce that I have been simplifying and adapting. First, no alcohol, so I substitute simple syrup. Then no gluten, so I use gluten-free red miso paste. We have this simple recipe:

1.  Boil 1/4 cup of water -- it boils quickly.
2. Start adding white sugar, 1/2 tbsp or 1 tbsp at a time, until the water is syrupy.
3. Turn off the heat, and start adding red miso paste 1 tbsp at a time until it is thick.

This simple recipe was excellent, but I have experimented by:

• Adding ginger to the water before it boils. This is excellent.

Planned experiments include:

1. Adding flaky dried shiitake mushrooms
2. Doing a traditional katsu sauce and adding tomato paste, vinegar, fruit (I like pears), tamari soy sauce (which is gluten-free) and possibly seaweed of some sort and possibly chili peppers of some sort as well as black pepper. I will update this once I have a better recipe.

Melissa's Crispy Salmon Skn

Simple, reliable twist to make crispy salmon skin, with the skin served separately:

1. Heat olive oil in the skillet
2. Sprinkle salt in the heated oil (where the fillet will sit)
3. Sprinkle a pinch of sugar on top of the salt (optional)
4. Lay salmon skin side down on top of salt and sugar
5. After appropriate time, flip salmon
6. Sprinkle a pinch of salt on the skin
7. Sprinkle a pinch of sugar and/or drizzle a bit of maple syrup on the skin
8. After 15-30 seconds, gently lift skin off the fillet. If it doesn't easily peel off, wait a lttle longer, then remove.
9. Place skin in the same skillet with the salmon. Continue to cook. (In the last seconds of cooking, I flip the fillet again, so the side that had skin removed is down, on the pan. That's so that side soaks up any remaining seasonings.)
10. The skin crisps up. It'll curl, looking like a ribbon. Remove it from the skillet when it crisps. It won't take long. Make sure it doesn't burn. Before transferring to a plate, I let the skin's oil drip into the pan. It'll still be greasy.

Supposedly skin won't curl if it's scored before placing in a skillet. I haven't tried that.

Alex loves it when I use maple syrup on both sides the fillet. Crispy skin recipes don't call for sugar or maple syrup.

I've cooked salmon in both stainless and cast iron skillets and made crispy skin in both.

If you make it, I hope you enjoy it.