Showing posts with label miso paste. Show all posts
Showing posts with label miso paste. Show all posts

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Miso Risotto for a #SundaySupper On The Hunt

Miso Risotto for a #SundaySupper On The Hunt




One difference between where I lived in California and where I live in Washington is the number of ethnic grocery stores. They're more common in the San Francisco Bay Area. I can understand that demand drives their numbers so I had to look to find a supermarket that stocks imported Asian ingredients when I needed them for this dish. How does this fit in with this week's #SundaySupper theme of On The Hunt? Well, the ingredients used may either be sourced through traditional hunting methods, foraged (mushrooms, for example), or hunted down online or at far away ethnic supermarkets. For me, I chose option C because I imagine I'd be just as bad shot as Dick Cheney and didn't know where to begin foraging for other items. I went to a local chain called Uwajimaya for my miso paste and mirin.

Let's discuss the dish. Definitely a fusion concept applying Japanese ingredient substitutions to the Italian risotto method, but would it taste good? I've profiled the risotto method here several times in the past so there's nothing new from an execution standpoint however I was intrigued.

The Challenge

Successfully combine a Japanese flavor profile into an Italian dish.

The Source

I adapted the dish from Foodista

Ingredients

5 to 6 cups water
3 tablespoons white miso paste
2 tablespoons peanut oil
1 shallot, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced (approximately 1-inch piece ginger root, peeled)
1 cup Arborio rice
Green leaves from 2 baby bok choy, julienned
1/2 cup mirin
1 tablespoon soy sauce
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons slivered almonds
2 green onions, sliced thin

Method

1. Combine the water and miso in a saucepan over medium heat and bring to a light simmer. Stir to dissolve the miso, then reduce the heat to keep warm.


2. Pour the oil in a skillet and place over medium heat. Once hot, sweat the ginger and shallots in the oil then add the rice to toast. Add the bok choy leaves and stir until wilted. Deglaze the skillet with the mirin, stirring until it evaporates. Add in the miso water, 1/2 cup to 1 cup at a time (eyeball it), stirring continually until each addition has been absorbed before adding another. Keep adding miso water and stir until the rice is al dente. (Start tasting the rice after three or four additions.)


3. Once the rice is cooked, stir in the soy and black pepper. Adjust the seasoning, if necessary, with more salt. Serve in warmed bowls garnished with green onions and almonds.

Successful?

Before I proceed, let me first thank Stacy of Food Lust People Love and Tara of Noshing with the Nolands for hosting this week's event!

I made a few ingredient substitutions of my own. I substituted soy sauce for tamari, which is similar to soy, but milder and gluten-free. I also increased the amount of water because I know that three-and-a-half cups of water is insufficient to fully cook 1 cup of Arborio rice. I also found baby bok choy were a little more forgiving when julienned and did not need to remove the white stems.

From an execution standpoint, I found that, as the water evaporated during the process of stirring, the miso remained and became difficult to stir which prevented the grains of rice from cooking as evenly as I would have liked. I would recommend it only for those who are experienced with preparing more traditional risotto flavors. I recommend this more traditional preparation of risotto if you want to prepare risotto and have never done so. Ultimately Mrs. Stuntman only ate about half and quipped "Next time, just prepare my favorite. You know, the one with bacon and peas." I must admit, the dish was reminiscent of a poorly prepared fried rice.

For the record, Uwajimaya is about 8 miles away from my front door, but it's about a twenty minute drive without taking freeways, whereas the closest Asian supermarket from my previous residence was about half in distance and travel time. So despite my troubles with it, I am thankful for this dish because it presented the opportunity to explore my neighborhood and become more familiar with it.

Before you go, please review the other more successful #SundaySupper dishes that also feature ingredients that have been obtained on the hunt:

Spread it on Thick
Nibbles and Sides
The Main Event
Sweet Treats
Sunday Supper MovementJoin the #SundaySupper conversation on Twitter on Sunday! We tweet throughout the day and share recipes from all over the world. Our weekly chat starts at 7 p.m. ET.  Follow the #SundaySupper hashtag and remember to include it in your tweets to join in the chat. To get more great Sunday Supper Recipes, visit our website or check out our Pinterest board.

Would you like to join the Sunday Supper Movement? It’s easy. You can sign up by clicking here: Sunday Supper Movement.

Posted by at 18 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Miso Soup for #SundaySupper

Miso Soup


Construction is still ongoing in my apartment. This past week, my refrigerator was in my dining room, my dishwasher was normally where my refrigerator stands and my kitchen sink along with one side of my kitchen cabinets were missing. Good thing I prepared this appetizer before everything was torn down.

This week's #SundaySupper theme is soups. I prepard a miso soup appetizer a couple of months after I started my first website however, I had no clue what I was doing so I wanted to revisit the dish. Enter Nami of Just One Cookbook. I discovered her almost two years ago and she has since become my authority for Japanese cuisine.

One of the things I found fascinating when preparing this soup is that fundamentally, the preparation is the same between it and many Western soups. It starts off with a stock and then flavor is added to it. In this case, the stock is called a dashi, which is made from kelp and bonito, and the flavor is miso paste, which is commonly made from fermented soybeans. According to Nami, there are many variations of dashi because it is a component in many other Japanese dishes. Nami also notes that dashi packets and instant dashi can be purchased but I don't take shortcuts here so I will make awashe dashi from scratch. Many of these ingredients are not stocked by American supermarkets, but can easily be found in specialty Asian grocery stores.

The Challenge

I would not normally publish a dish such as this because the preparation isn't very complicated but the challenge here isn't difficulty; it's authenticity.

The Source

I encourage you to check out Nami's tutorial on how to make dashi because she took some amazing step-by-step pictures that I was not able to replicate. I started with step 4 of her miso soup recipe because she used a dashi packet for the soup in the post.

Ingredients

0.7 ounces (20 grams) dashi kombu
2 cups loosley packed Hana Katsuo or Katsuobushi bonito flakes
1 quart water
2 1/2 to 3 tablespoons white miso paste
5 ounces soft tofu, cut into small cubes (optional)
1 teaspoon dried wakame (optional)
1 green onion cut crosswise into rings (optional)

Method

1. Gently clean the kombu with a damp cloth but leave the white powdery substance. Score the sides of the kombu using kitchen shears. Place water in a medium saucepan and add the kombu and soak for 3 to 12 hours.


2. Slowly bring the water to just short of a boil (bubbles have formed on the bottom of the saucepan) over medium-low heat, approximately 20-25 minutes, skimming the surface periodically to remove any impurities.

3. Once the water has formed the bubbles, remove the kombu. Remove from heat and let it cool. Once cool, add the bonito flakes and bring to a boil, and continue skimming any impurities. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 seconds, then remove from heat. Let the mixture sit for ten minutes so the bonito flakes can settle to the bottom of the saucepan. Line a strainer with a paper towels and set it over a large bowl. Strain out the bonito flakes, reserving the fluid (dashi).



4. While the bonito flakes settle, add the wakame to a small bowl filled with water to rehydrate, approximately 10 minutes. Once rehydrated, add the wakame and the green onion to serving bowls.



5. Return the fluid to a simmer and add the miso, dissolving it in a ladle and 1 tablespoon at a time, tasting in between additions because miso paste can have a high concentration of sodium. Stir in the tofu cubes, adding 1/2 tablespoon more miso if needed because the tofu can dilute the miso. Spoon the soup into the serving bowls with the wakame and onions and serve immediately.

Successful?

About a week after I prepared this soup, Mrs. Stuntman wanted sushi. I ordered a bento box which came with a bowl of miso soup, however I was disappointed with it and preferred the homemade variety.

Nami notes that the used kombu and the bonito flakes can be reserved to make niban dashi, which is a less concentrated form used in other dishes where the flavors of the dashi are secondary to other ingredients. If you aren't familiar with her, I strongly suggest getting to know her. Please 'Like' her on facebook, follow her on twitter and pinterest in addition to adding her on G+.

Other Sunday Supper Participants

And finally, please check out this week's other Sunday Supper participants:

Do The Chicken Dance (chicken {or other poultry} soups)


Where's The Beef (Beef Soups)


Pass The Pork. Please (Pork or Sausage Soups)


Under The Sea (Seafood Soups)


Eat Your Veggies (Chock Full o' Vegetables Soups)


Some Don't Like It Hot (Chilled Soups)

Posted by at 24 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)