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Miso is a first-string breakaway player. It lives in your fridge, always ready to perform.
Miso has been popular in Japan for at least 1,400 years, and it's easy to see why: It's incredibly nutritious, it's full of protein, it has no fat, it lends deep savory intensity to everything it comes in contact with, it's easily digested, and, like umeboshi (pickled plums -- watch for a blog entry on umeboshi soon), it lasts for months or even years if kept tightly covered and refrigerated.
The making of miso is a very simple process. Large quantities of soybeans are first steamed, then laden with salt. Cooked grains (rice and barley are the most common) are then added, followed by a special mold known as koji. It then ferments for a while (ranging from weeks to years, depending on the desired result) in a wooden or stainless steel tub, until victory is declared.
It comes in many different types and colors, ranging from light yellow (the lightest and sweetest variety), dark yellow/brown (the most typical, medium body) and reddish brown (most savory, most salty, most intense). Generally speaking, the lighter the color, the milder and sweeter the flavor.
A few years ago in Tokyo, I watched a family-style quiz show that featured five blindfolded small children, probably about age six. The mothers of each of the five were asked to prepare a pot of miso soup, and to serve a small bowl of it to each of the five kids, whose task was to select which among the five they tasted was their mother's. To the great relief of the mothers, the host, and the wildly cheering studio audience, each one got it right!
You've gotta love the concept of blind tastings for tots!
Miso soup -- consumed by tens of millions of Japanese for breakfast and often for lunch and dinner, too -- is almost always made with dashi as a base, but it's also excellent with other stocks. I really like making miso soup using organic chicken stock (from a box, of course) and fennel, a recipe that appears in my new cookbook. It just really brings out the best in miso.
But it's equally great:
- as a base for marinades
- as a glaze ingredient for broiled fish (along with apricot jam and canola oil)
- eaten straight up with cucumber spears and beer (for a super-punched up version, add a little pomegranate molasses to it)
- mixed with oranges and stuffed under the skin of a roasted chicken
- in stewed pork
- on mashed potatoes as a gravy, and
- in countless other uses when you need a savory blast
Any of you using miso in breakaway ways? Post your creations here!
(photo by Annabelle Breakey)
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