"roy yamaguchi" news and stories

For melt-in-your-mouth fish (with "a golden, caramelized crust, buttery flavor, and a delicate flaky texture"), start with a miso-based marinade, says the Florida blogger who shared this photo. Inspired after tasting Hawaiian star chef Roy Yamaguchi's misoyaki butterfish, she switched it up at home and marinated wild-caught salmon in a mixture of miso, sake (Japanese rice wine), mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine), sugar and a mix of sweet white Shiro and red Aka miso pastes.

Japanese staple miso (fermented grains such as rice, barley and/or soybeans) adds depth to dishes, from simple soups to marinades like this one, and has seemingly endless variations, from light to smoky and dark. If you don't have the time to marinate, try salmon with miso glaze.

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Jonathan Waxman Photo: Fabrizio Ferri, courtesy of jonathanwaxman.com

Could you feel the love last night on Top Chef Masters? Sure, the season until now has been all about pro-chef bonding: sharing techniques; lending a hand in the crunch; reminiscing about experiences in the culinary world.

But Wednesday was something else entirely. The competing foursome went to a place somewhere beyond mere camaraderie -- a place even further than the conciliatory, bromantic half-hug shared by final-round losers Roy Yamaguchi (Roy's Hawaiian Kitchen) and Michael Cimarusti (of LA's acclaimed Providence). What we witnessed last night was an emotional journey, a blubbering, four-hanky love-in.

The warm fuzzies started with the introduction of this group's demigod, Jonathan Waxman. Not only was the Barbuto owner and New Yorker a literal mentor to Cimarusti years prior, but his clout with James Beard and Julia Child back in the day held Yamaguchi and Oprah's favorite Southern chef Art Smith (Table 52) in awe for most of the episode.

When it came time for each chef to pick the ingredients for each others' final cook-off, their selections the best seasonal goods Whole Foods had to offer, rather than sundry oddities meant to undermine the competition: kumquats, sunchokes, mangoes, beautiful bone-in pork chops. "The word 'sabotage' isn't in a professional chef's vocabulary," Waxman reminded us.