Recipe #1

What can you make with miso?

Now that we’ve covered miso, we should talk about how to use it. It’s easy to look at miso and think Japanese food, but you don’t have to stop there. I use soy sauce when seasoning my chicken soup, and I learned to season sausage gravy with it from Sean Brock. If you think of miso as a way to add umami to a dish and not as a component of Japanese cuisine, you will open culinary doors for yourself and often find it to be the ‘magic’ ingredient.

Adding a small amount of miso to gravy is wonderful. Use it to pump up a salad dressing or a marinade. Miso’s body also makes it a great addition to glazes. What about desert? Next time you make a caramel, cookies, or coffee cake, try substituting miso for the pinch of salt, you’ll be surprised how it turns out.

Here is a non-traditional use of miso that makes an incredibly satisfying side dish. I used broccolini here, but this can be used on brussels sprouts, butternut squash, carrots, and more.

Broccolini | Miso | Apple cider vinegar | Cashews 

Ingredients: Yields 4 servings

         2 bunch      Broccolini

         1/4 c           Roasted Salted Cashews

         6 ea            Fresh garlic cloves

         2 Tbs          Oil (high smoke point: avocado, grapeseed, etc.)

Miso glaze:

1/4 c           White Miso

         1/8 c           Apple Cider Vinegar

         1/8 c           Butter (softened)

         1 Tbs          Soy Sauce

Method:      

1.    Make the miso glaze by mixing white miso, ACV, softened butter, and soy sauce together. You can even microwave the glaze for 10 seconds at a time until you get all of the butter mixed in. It will all fully incorporate and form a smooth paste.

2.    Wash broccolini and cut off any woody ends; dry well. Rough chop or break apart cashews. Peal garlic without smashing the cloves and slice as thinly as possible.

3.    Heat a large pan or wok (preferably not a non-stick pan) over a medium/high heat with your oil until you see a very light white smoke. Add in broccolini plus a very small pinch of salt and sauté for a few minutes until the broccolini develops a little char.

4.    Once your broccolini has some char and is softened up a little (don’t cook it to mush, a little crunch is a good thing) turn the heat down to low and add the cashews and garlic.

5.    Sautee for 1-2 minutes until the garlic is lightly browned. Be careful not to overdo it or the garlic will go bitter.

6.    Add half of the miso glaze and toss to coat the broccolini completely. If the pan seems really hot and the glaze dries up to quick, you can toss in a tablespoon of so of water to loosen it up.

That’s it! Nicely done, you now have a super savory and delicious veggie to accompany salmon, chicken, tofu, or pork. But hey, if you want to put it on a burger there’s no judgement here. Unlock miso, unlock your palate, unlock your life.