Fried Pollock w/ Ginger Miso Sauce and Spicy Pickled Vegetables

   

In the hands of an able cook, fish can become and exhaustible, source of perpetual delight.
                                                                                                                        -Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

I cooked this dish sometime last week after a visit to my favorite Oriental grocer. I took  a fancy on the Miso paste on the Japanese aisle and got curious with a bottle labeled Kim Chi on the Vietnamese section. It was not the Korean Kimchi made of pickled cabbage but a  spicy sweet and sour combo of pickled vegetables. The bottle was packed with thin sliced carrot rounds,white baby Bok choy stems, small green onion bulbs and chilies. The taste was not as hot and salty like the authentic Kimchi but tastes similar to the sweet and sour atchara(pickled shredded green papaya),but spicier . I actually got a second bottle because  the first was gone in a matter of three days. A perfect constant accompaniment  to steaming rice.

To make the dish, I cut the Pollock into portions and marinated the pieces  with key lime juice,nam pla and  some  crushed black pepper. Then I made a Miso sauce by adding  Chinese wine and minced ginger to the Miso paste and mixed them well. I added a little sugar to balance the taste of the sauce. This I made as a base sauce for the fried fish. I added about  two teaspoons of the vegetable pickles and a little drizzle of it's liquid on top the fish, to compliment the slightly salty Miso sauce.

I think this would make  a good spicy Lenten treat.