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Directions
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.
~- Michelle Dick artemis@rahul.net
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)
Servings: 1 servings
About Miso Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Japanese
The History of Recipes
It is quite feasible to follow the history of transcribed cooking instructions back into history, certainly as far back as pharonic Egypt, and possibly even further than that. Having said that, generally, these early cookbooks were just very basic hieroglyphic recipes for meal preparation.
Interestingly, the oldest recipe found, according to food historians are some clay tablets in Sumerian which show the making of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as having made drinkers feel wonderful and blissful. As we move into The time of the romans 25BC a Roman scholar, called Apicius, assembled some scrolls describing recipes cooked by wealthy Romans. In his works, he recounts how the meals of wealthy Romans were split into hors d`oeuvres, main course and dessert, a very modern way of dining. Aspicius tells us how the cooks of his times used a wide range of herbs and spices, including a few that will be familiar to modern cooks such as thyme, mint and asafoetida. During the next few hundred years, the wealthy families of Europe competed with each other to serve the most extravagent banquests, and consequentially the best chefs and their collection of recipes became highly prized. Nevertheless, it wasn`t until the nineteenth century that fine cookery and cookery books really came of age. The Famous Mrs Isabella Beeton in the UK, and the equally famous Fannie Farmer in the US, devoted their lives to assembling, verifying, and publishing the recipes that were being prepared for the better households. Like it or not, the introduction of TV brought us cooking programs and the demand for the spin-off recipe books. And that pretty much brings us to the present day and the invention of computers and the internet, allowing everyone to access thousands of recipes just like those on our web site. |
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