Making miso every winter is now a tradition. Our friend S. prepares everything for the event and we gather together for a couple of hours to chitchat and squeeze soya beans. Well, for non Japanese people or not used to Japanese cuisine, miso may be a rather intriguing ingredient and not so easy to use except in the traditional miso soup, and even then, using fresh miso in a soup may be a bit challenging when not used to. But the truth is that miso is quite versatile. We easily eat 2or 3kg of miso every year at home! You can see my past posts about miso here, but let me summarize some of the things you can do with miso again.

Miso can be used in soup, dips, to pickle vegetables and flowers, in marinade for fish, a spread on rice balls, to replace butter in pie crust, to replace cream in quiche flan, just to give a creamy texture to a sauce, and in many other places I am forgetting!

Today two super simple recipes with miso: in pie crust and in spread. Both are very straightforward. Let’s start with spread, a classic in Japanese cuisine: yakionigiri. You need just some plain white Japanese rice and a two tea spoon of miso per serving of rice. Cook the rice to obtain a sticky japanese classic rice. Prepare a sheet of cooking paper. Wash your hand under cold water and don’t dry them. Take half a serving of rice in your hand and form a ball (if your sensitive to heat let it cool down before doing that, you may burn your palms). Put the ball on the cooking paper. Gently flatten it by pressing with your palm. Spread one tea spoon of miso on top. Put under the grill until the miso starts darkening. Eat right away.

The second recipe is just to replace butter in a pie crust by miso. This changes of course the pie crust consistency to a more crispy on the edges and chewy on the bottom, with the characteristic flavor of miso. You can make quiche with it (vegetables such as spinach, broccoli, canola… are perfect), or tiny sesame crackers.., or be creative and use it for a chocolate tart!!!