Main Ingredients:

See below ingredients and instructions of the recipe

Cooking Preparation of the Recipe:

1 ea Text file

The best resource on Miso that I know of is Shurtleff and Aoyagi's
book _The Book of Miso_. It's quite a complex subject. The
differences is miso can be attributed to a variet of factors, from
the proportion of ingredients, cooking techniques, and duration and
temperature of fermentation. The redish color comes from long
fermentation times (or in cheap imitations, from dyes). The whiter
misos are generally fermented for short times, and often made with
rice in addition to soybeans. Reds are generally saltier and whites
sweeter.

Misos vary widely in fat content (like most soy products) and
generally range from .25 to 1.5 gram of fat per tablespoon (and from
about 6%CFF to over 30%CFF). Some varieties, like peanut miso,
obviously have even more fat. Since it is rare that a dish has more
than 1 T miso per serving, miso does not generally add appreciable
fat to a dish. Many of the white sweet misos clock in at the low end
(.25 grams per T, 6-10%CFF) so if you do want to use more miso, these
kinds can be added liberally to a dish (and since their taste isn't
as strong or salty, they do become many dishes in greater quantity).

I find the dark, hearty misos make great gravy starters. Add a bit of
water/stock, some nutritional yeast, spices and a thickener to some
miso and voila, instant delicious gravy. A favorite miso-potato
recipe follows.


On miso, you just have to try different kinds brands. There are
numerous styles of miso. Red misos tend to be more "savory" and
white ones are usually more "sweet". Country-style (Inaka) is made
grainier on purpose. If served as a sauce on veggies, probably it's
not straight miso but mixed w/sugar and some rice vinegar. BTW a
warning to vegetarians, some misos come "dashi-iri" which includes
fish-based stock. I think the ingredients label in English will
mention fish, but not sure (since I can read the Japanese, I don't
usually check the English), so check the ingredients carefully.
There is kombu-dashi (I even found some granulated packets) which is
vegetarian, but most dashi is from bonito flakes (I guess it must be
cheaper).

Aiko P. From Fatfree Digest April-May 1994, Formatting by Sue Smith
(using MMCONV)

Browse by categories