Saturday Night Japanese

Ok, really this is more Japanese-inspired than Japanese. For dinner I did cauliflower and celery root braised in dashi, sake, and soy sauce; quick-pickled napa cabbage with rice vinegar and sesame oil, breaded miso-marinated merlan (whiting) fillets, and short-grain rice.

The cauliflower/celery root thing was looking to be quite nice, but then I stopped paying attention for a bit too long and the pan went dry. This added a dark (not quite burnt) note to the flavor that was not what I was looking for. Ah well; it was still edible.

For the fish: I marinated the fillets in a mixture of light miso paste, sake, and rice vinegar for an hour or so. After rinsing off the marinade, I breaded the fillets (flour, egg, paniermehl) and then fried them in peanut oil. These guys were really excellent.

The miso-marinated fish gave me a powerful craving for broiled sablefish. I wonder what the odds of finding sablefish fillets here are.