Mixing miso and butter together creates something like an umami carpet bomb. The intense salty funk of miso combined with the richness of butter makes this extremely simple two-part sauce a powerhouse of savory flavor. Use it to baste fish or meat to get even more umami than the protein provides alone, and the heat from the baste will toast some of the miso, adding another layer of flavor. It’s amazing.

Two of my favorite things to cook with miso butter are summer succotash and cobia. The ‘tash is basically a sautee of everything that is going gangbusters in my garden this time of the year: soybeans, corn, tomatoes, and basil. Add some miso butter and country ham and you are in for a treat.

Second to the succotash is a piece of cobia. This fish has a semi-firm texture, plenty of moisture content, and really benefits from the toasty notes of a little char. Because cobia is somewhat dense and firm, you can treat it more like a steak in a hot pan than a delicate fish that will fall apart with rough handling.

If you’ve ever basted a steak or fish fillet in a pan before, this uses the same technique. You’ll want to add some additional butter to the pan alongside the miso butter (this gives you more melted butter to baste with). The miso will brown and turn dark, so reduce the heat if needed to keep it from burning. The finished fish should have a caramel color, speckled with toasty bits of miso.