Sweet Miso Eggplant and Rice Noodles

I have a new favourite recipe. It’s for pretty much any vegetable cooked in a mixture of sweet white miso, vegan fish sauce (or real fish sauce, or soy sauce) and enough water to make a paste.

I use my homemade miso (the recipe was a mix of the one in Miso, Tempeh, Natto & Other Tasty Ferments by Christopher and Kirsten Shockey and the Japanese man who teaches a miso-making class at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre. The process was fairly similar, with a few extra suggestions in each.

Miso Tempeh Natto Cookbook Review: Dosa, Fermented Flatbreads, Injera, Natto and Tempeh

I still messed it up, though. Typical. At first, it wasn’t moist enough and I got some white mold on top. I scraped the mold off, because that’s fine, and added a little water. But then it was too wet. Then I got black mold throughout most of the miso, which is bad, and it smelled off, a bit like nail polish. But I scraped off the parts that were clearly bad and found some that seemed fine, and vowed to only use them for cooking rather than eating raw. That’s too bad, because some of the healthy bacteria would die, but at least I’d have some miso.

And how happy I am! I don’t mind taking a big spoonful of this stuff and cooking it down with vegan fish sauce and eggplant or sweet potatoes or carrots or mushrooms. Broccoli would be amazing. So would cauliflower. So would, well, pretty much everything.

I served it above with rice noodles and cilantro, something between a miso soup on noodles and a stew. Let’s just call it stewed eggplant on noodles. Wait, no, that’s an awful name. How about:

Sweet Miso Eggplant and Rice Noodles

Serves 2

1 large Globe eggplant, or 2 Asian eggplants, cubed
2 tbsp sweet white miso
1 tbsp vegan or regular fish sauce (my miso was low-salt, but much commercial miso contains more sodium, so you’ll need less fish sauce)
1/2 cup water
2 servings cooked rice noodles

Combine eggplant cubes, miso and fish sauce in a medium pot. Stir to distribute miso and bring to a boil over high heat.

Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 8 minutes. Taste and add more fish sauce if necessary. Serve with rice noodles or rice.