I realized, looking back through my food photos from the past six months, that the only recipes I took pictures of during Covid quarantine are ones I developed for ALIVE magazine and DELICIOUS LIVING. That’s a good 20 or 25 recipes, but still, that’s it – except for a lone bowl of rice noodles topped with miso-sauced eggplant.
Why the exception? And why something so simple? Surely, if I was to take a break from testing recipes for five types of chicken noodle soup, I’d come up with something a bit more…well, glamorous?
Nope. I took some homemade miso, stirred it into a pot of cubed eggplant and added a little sake, water and gluten-free soy sauce. Then I poured it over rice vermicelli. And it was delicious. Mostly because the miso was homemade, but any sweet miso will work.
To learn more about sweet miso and how to make it (note: it’s not that thick), you’ll want to check out Miso, Tempeh, Natto & Other Tasty Ferments by Christopher and Kirsten Shockey. I reviewed the book in another post about making my own tempeh, natto and injera.
My miso wasn’t perfect. At first it was too dry, so I added water, but then it was too wet and I got mold underneath. I thought I was going to have to scrap the whole thing, but I just couldn’t bear to do it, so I composted the foulest smelling stuff and kept the rest, pressing it down into a bunch of small clean glass jars and putting them into the fridge. I figured that this way if one jar of miso went off, at least they might not all go off.
And I was right. Or, at least I was right in that it didn’t make me sick when I cooked the miso. There’s still some nutritional benefit of eating the miso even when it’s been cooked, and even if it’s less than if it were raw, I don’t have to worry about my stomach going into digestive knots because some mold slipped in.
Hence, nasu dengaku, or sweet miso eggplant. Simple, comforting, mildly sweet and totally addictive.
Sweet Miso Eggplant, My Way
1 dark purple Italian eggplant or 3 slimmer light purple Asian eggplants, peeled and cubed
3-4 tbsp sweet miso (sweet miso is usually lower salt than other misos because it’s a young miso; older misos need more salt to age longer safely)
1 tbsp sake or mirin, optional
1 tsp soy sauce (or fish sauce if you want a funkier, sweeter flavour)
2 tbsp water
Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer 5 minutes, or until eggplant is tender. Add more soy sauce, miso or sake to taste. If you’re not worried about your miso being moldy (and you shouldn’t, even if it’s been sitting in your fridge for forever), you can just stir it in without boiling it again. Might as well get as much nutrition out of it as you can.
Serve with rice or rice noodles.
And if you make your own miso, good for you!!! It’s a great investment and a fun experience, even if you mess it up like me.
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