After criticizing my mother’s cooking we got into a bit of a fight, resulting in her placing dinner entirely in my hands.

It had to be a salmon dish, that was the plan. The disagreement was over the seasoning: my mom wanted to use some off-the-shelf “salmon seasoning” that I knew I wouldn’t like.

The options for salmon in my cooking game were very limited, and we were missing ingredients for all of them. I had to turn to the internet, searching for different combinations of ingredients that we had. We would usually end up missing some critical ingredient, or if we weren’t the recipe would seem to taste too “rustic” or “earthy” for me.

Finally, I found a recipe that matched my requirements, but I was missing a critical ingredient: Miso paste. Of course, our kitchen didn’t have any. What we did have, however, were a few packets of instant miso soup powder that I’d brought back from Houston Chinatown last Christmas. Low on options, I took the risk of switching the powder for the paste. I used one packet, which usually makes one bowl, because the amount of miso paste (2 TBSP) they used is the same used for one bowl of miso. I would have been missing many more ingredients, but because I had bought ingredients for California rolls a few days earlier I had mirin and rice vinegar.

The cooking went well, if a little frantic. I had never cooked salmon myself, so my mom did help me in determining when it was done.

The entire meal consisted of Miso glazed salmon, steamed rice with nori, and green beans with cheese (my mom made this). For dessert, we had rice krispies bars. It turned out very nice, and the salmon was delicious. I was quite relieved, because I was concerned I would screw up and ruin dinner.

A picture of the completed meal: Okay, it doesn’t look like much when all is said and done, but check out the satisfied customer: and all it cost him was paying for four years of college education…

Here is the text of the recipe, in case the site ever goes down. A big thank you to “The Savory Notebook”!

Oven-Roasted Miso Sesame Salmon 4 serving-sized pieces of salmon fillet (about 6 ounces each) 2 tablespoons light miso 1 1/2 tablespoons mirin 1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar 2 tablespoons rice vinegar or cider vinegar 2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds chopped scallions Preheat the oven to 450. Rinse the salmon and place it skin-side down on an oiled baking sheet. With a sharp knife, make about 4 slashes across each fillet, taking care not to cut all the way through. In a small bowl, combine the miso, mirin, brown sugar and vinegar. Roast the salmon for 5 minutes. Remove it from the oven, spoon the miso-mirin glaze onto the fillets and return to the oven until the fish flakes easily with a fork but is still moist, 3 to 5 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fillets. Serve sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds and scallions.