Soy Sauce Braised Black Cod (Gindara Nitsuke)

If you love miso cod, you'll love this recipe. It has a similar balance of sweet and savory tastes, but there's no need to marinate the fish in advance. It all comes together in about ten minutes in a single pan, and yet it looks and tastes like it came off a menu from a fancy restaurant making it an excellent option for a lighter holiday meal.

The method is to braise it in teriyaki sauce, which thickens up as it reduces and eventually turns into a glaze. I like adding lots of ginger to smooth over any fish notes, but it's also delicious with other aromatics and herbs added to it, such as garlic, scallions, or sansho.

Sablefish (a.k.a. Black Cod) has a good amount of fat on it, making it a very forgiving fish that's hard to dry out. It's also relatively firm, so you don't need to worry about it flaking apart as much as other fish when you flip and baste it.