Salmon Shioyaki With Miso Eggplant

Spotted salmon heads being sold at Meidi-ya (our go-to place for Japanese products) supermarket and they were only going for S$1.50 for half a head. Being the fish head loving girl that I am, I went on to buy 2 halves and decided to cook it the next day.

Shioyaki literally means grilling with salt. As seen from the above picture, all I did was grill my salmon head with coarse sea salt and a little olive oil butter. I would recommend using liquid olive oil but alas, I ran out of it. You also should use the coarse sea salt so that it helps to blister the skin when it grills and gives you that lovely, slightly charred taste. Remember to salt all sides! Grill for about 15-20 min (depending on the size of the head) and it's ready!

Now...(wo)men cannot live on salmon head alone...so I decided to whip up stir fried eggplant with a nice miso sauce.

Recipe below is meant for 1 person:

1 dessert spoon of miso
1 tsp sugar
1 dessert spoon of honey
1 cup water
1 tbsp cognac
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 eggplant, sliced thickly

Method:

1. Mix the honey and water together into a honey water. If you don't have honey, then use 1 dessert spoonful of white sugar. I prefer honey as honey has antibacterial properties and it adds another dimension to the sauce.
2. In a bowl, mix the miso paste, sugar and half of the honey water together until you get a smooth paste. Add more honey water if necessary.

In a wok or frying pan, stir fry the minced garlic until golden brown. Then toss in the eggplant and cook until it's 95% cooked and soft.

Once the eggplant is soft, pour in the miso mixture and cognac. Continue to cook the eggplant until it's thoroughly cooked. During this process, the sauce will get too thick. This is where the remaining honey water comes in. Use the honey water to hydrate the sauce and cook the eggplant until it looks like this:

It was delicious!! Serve both the salmon and eggplant with a bowl of Japanese rice and tadah...simple but yet yummy food. For 1 happy mouth here :D