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Valentine’s gift guide
We’re in full Valentine’s mode now–the busiest three weeks of the year are here! If you haven’t made your selections yet, here are some ideas for your loved ones, or, even better, to Valentine yourself.
- The biggest and fanciest of our Valentine selections is the My Heart is Yours collection. It’s a giant 6″ chocolate heart filled with nine special chocolates. It’s truly special, and a truly huge amount of chocolate, too.
- Our Intense Anatomical Heart is one of the most wild and crazy chocolates we make. Not for the faint of you-know-what, it’s tangy, fruity, bitter, and salty, an entire rollercoaster of flavors unfolding one after another on your tongue. It’s for the kind of love that leaves your heart pounding and your mouth dry—that wild kind of relationship.
- The White Chocolate Strawberry Bark is red and swirly and perfectly suited to your Valentine who maybe doesn’t love deep dark chocolate but just wants something fun and snackable.
- All of our truffles are, of course, classic symbols of love, but the new Harlot Box is especially lovey because it includes pomegranate truffles garnished with gorgeous organic rose petals.
- If you want to extend your love to animals this loving season, not only is the Rosemary Sea Salt Caramels (we just call it RSSC) box our bestest seller of all time, but half the cost of each box goes to Friends of Animals as well.
- The feisty feminist women in your life will be honored to receive any of our Bluestocking Bonbons, each of which is named for an inspiring woman. The Raspberries de Pizan are particularly perfect, since they’re filled with fresh raspberry puree.
- And, of course, Furious Vulvas. Of course!
the most ridiculous blog post ever
When I need to add a photo to the website, I’m supposed to upload it to an FTP thingie. But my FTP program thingie is always annoying, and uploading photos to this blog is so easy! Thus, the purpose of this blog post is to upload this photo of the Luscious Locavore box (<—- fabulous new name, as mentioned in the post below, is thanks to Facebook pal Erica!). It’s a truly beautiful thing, this box in this beautiful porcelain container. Read all about it here!
Hey, a blog post with Valentine’s ideas is coming soon! The February Chocolate of the Month is already up though, and it is GIANT and amazing.
free chocolate alert!
Do I know how to get blog views, or what?
(Not a photo of the New Paltz Box, this is the blueberry truffle box from this summer.)
Here’s the situation. I’ve overhauled the beloved Pink Box of truffles a bit. Because it contained three truffles that featured local ingredients, I removed the one non-local truffle (the Pomegranate) to its own box (over here) and swapped it out with the Blueberry Black Pepper Currant truffle that everyone so adored from this summer. Because New Paltz has such strong historical ties to blueberry picking, and because this truffle is too tasty not to make all the time, I think it’s a good fit, and I hope you’ll like the revamped box.
Right now I’m calling it the “New Paltz Box,” but that’s pretty boring, as is the Hudson Valley Box. It would be nice to have a snappy name (like Heathen Toffee for a bunch of atheists making toffee that tastes a bit like that candy bar that rhymes with “teeth”–punny!).
Can you think of something better? Something the embodies the spirit of the strange and lovely mountain town of New Paltz, or the Hudson Valley in general, while tying it to the chocolates in this box? It’s a tall order. If you think of the absolutely perfect name, write it as a comment on our Facebook wall, and I’ll pick the best one and/or will let the one which gets the most “likes” win.
The winner will receive two (2!!) boxes of this sparkly new chocolate in the mail when we return from our vacation, around the end of January. Sound good? Let’s go!
shop half-birthday, new website items
We went with Fudge Truffle, lo these 6 months ago, though the idea of a TRUFFLE made out of FUDGE does not make me very happy. "TOO SWEET!" I kept saying in the paint aisle...
Hello and Happy December 28! In case the date isn’t as engraved on your heart as it is mine, December 28 means the shop has been open exactly six months!
It’s been an amazingly fun half year. To celebrate, I put some beloved items we’ve previously only sold in the shop on the website for all to enjoy. Thanks so much for your patronage over the past 6 months in the shop, and the past years on the website. It’s such a pleasure making lovely things for you.
On to the new products!
Happy December 28!
Of ethics and capitalism. And the dreaded mixing of the two. And please tell me what you think of this email I sent to this person.
I pride myself on being an activist running a capitalist business in an activisty way.
My business is not a not-for-profit, and I promise never to come to you asking for money to help me improve or continue the business, without showing you a business plan and a repayment schedule. For-profits that ask for donations (the vegan world is chockablock with ‘em) sicken me. I’ve borrowed money from every monied (and not-monied) pal I have, and I’ve always paid it back on time—with interest. That way, my business is my own. I’ve been a part of many co-ops, and my business isn’t a co-op for a reason—I’ve got crushing student loan payments, three mortgages, and an etsy.com addiction that all mean I’ve got to make this business work or else. I just can’t afford to share profits with anyone else if this business is going to succeed. I pay my employees worse than I’d like to but better than 99% of the rest of the food world, and I give them bonuses and chocolates and help them out when I can in other ways.
When it comes right down to it, I’m here to make money while not compromising a pretty rock-solid set of ethical standards I’ve cultivated over the years. Both of those pillars—ethics and keeping an eye on the bottom line—are absolutely crucial to the success of this little enterprise.
I try not to compromise, and I don’t pretend not to be a for-profit. I don’t want to make a ton of money, but I’d like to pay off a few bills and provide a few more good jobs and buy well-made clothes that cost a bit more (hellooooo etsy)—how cliched, to want to be doing this whole ethical American Dream thing in the political hellscape that is 2011, I know, I know.
So when I got an opportunity for a local business—a really good nonprofit!—to buy their holiday chocolates at Lagusta’s Luscious instead of a very very mainstream, very very mall-y, very very much 100% using chocolate harvested in various questionable ways, from small African boys who have been taken from their families in very very questionable ways and made to work for no money picking cacao beans to middlemen keeping mega profits from cacao harvests themselves and using them to fund violent uprisings and drug empires, I could go on and on and on about the horrible things behind mainstream, mall-y, non-organic, non-fair-trade chocolate—I was excited.
Also, the aforementioned company’s chocolates TASTE REALLY BAD. I’ve tasted all the chocolate of theirs my ethics will permit me to taste (the dark chocolates) and they are MIND-BLOWINGLY one-dimensional and waxy and processed and made of ick. AND they don’t include local ingredients, AND their stuff is made by machines and mostly likely never ever touched by human hands AND over-packaged in miles of plastic and styrofoam AND AND AND, obviously my wee little company, operating out of a 750 sq ft shop/world headquarters and run by a crazy vegan feminist anarchist obsessed with making chocolates so good you want to cry is, ah, quite a different thing entirely.
Not only was it a large order (about $1000), it was a great opportunity to steal business from The Big Bad Mainstream Chocolate Company. Win win for a small local biz, right? The order needed to go out two days after Thanksgiving. It would be great start to what was to become our most wildly busy holiday season of all time. I told my little team about the possibility, and they were psyched to go for it, even though it would mean a couple days of extra-long hours.
My contact at the non-profit was the assistant of the director, who met with me at the shop and, very politely and sweetly, told me that the deal was that if I could provide a similar amount of chocolate at a similar cost, they would be overjoyed to switch to me. They wanted to send holiday gifts to about 18 clients of theirs, and pointed to the corporate gifts section of The Big Bad Mainsteam Chocolate Company’s catalog. I studied the catalog and said we could work something out, while giving my standard speech about why our chocolates cost more. She was receptive and understanding and sweet.
Over the next dew days I spent hours working with her putting together 18 different special assortment towers that would be luxuriously decadent and made of truly ethical chocolate wrapped in ribbon made from vegetable cellulose that probably no one ever composts but me but you can if you want to!
I worked really hard on getting this account. I told all my friends that I felt like I was in Mad Men, working on reeling in a big fish. But I didn’t ply my potential with martini lunches and low-cut blouses. I told her about my company, and why I thought we could provide a superior product. Don Draper I am not.
In the end, after cutting as much of a deal as I could cut, it came down to this: the $1000-$1200 (probably more like $1200 with shipping) she was going to spend at The Big Bad Mainstream Chocolate Company would cost $1542 with Lagusta’s Luscious. That included a substantial discount as well as a lot of personalized packages and service, handwritten notes to all her clients, gift wrapping, and more. I couldn’t go any lower, or else I wouldn’t make the profit necessary to keep propane in the $4k tank, or my employees paid, or or or or or. I couldn’t go any lower.
And so I lost the account.
I told my little team, and we agreed I should fight for it. So when the sweet assistant told me they wouldn’t be going with me, I wrote this back, and I’m still not sure that to think about it.
I know all about the financial realities of running a small business, and I wish I could give you more of a discount—but what I’m most proud of about my business is that we really “walk the walk” when it comes to ethics. All our chocolate is organic and fair-trade, and we use as many local ingredients as possible in our chocolates. This ensures that many of the ethical problems with chocolate production, including the documented use of child slavery on cocoa plantations, are not present with my chocolates. I know you’re a socially-responsible business as well, and understand these complicated issues.One idea I’d throw out there is to spend the same amount (about $1000) but simply sending less chocolate–your clients will love the rich flavor of real, intensely-flavored chocolate, and I think they will appreciate the handmade artisan nature of our products as well. If you were to get 17 Big Assortments, the total would be $870 for the chocolate and $200 for shipping, so $1070, with complimentary gift wrapping.Thanks so much for your consideration and I look forward to working with you in the future.
Not such a bad email, right?
Except that I’ve been feeling weird for a month now that I used those same African child slaves as a way to get business.
It feels weirdly exploitative that my for-profit biz worked the ethics angle so hard in order to land a big account. Everything I said was true and I stand by everything I said…but my stomach still gets a little wiggly when I think about it.
Anyway, it didn’t matter. We didn’t get the order.
We didn’t get the order, but we did get several other corporate orders that added up to more than $1000, and it was all OK in the end. For us.
But even with my weirdness about the email, I was angry, and sad, and obviously I still am since it’s a month later and I’m writing a blog post about it. Partially I’m sad for myself, yes, but mostly because now a nice local non-profit is sending their clients chocolate packaged in outgassing plastic, made with chemicals and with cacao beans harvested in horrible ways, because they couldn’t pay $400 more dollars. I gave them the opportunity to spend the same amount of money on less chocolates, but they wanted the Big Bad Mainsteam Chocolate Company’s lavish boxes, with that wiry plasticky ribbon and the mountains of packaging.
Can I blame them? A small business in New Paltz, New York that needs to look out for the bottom line in order to survive? Is the pot calling the kettle black here?
I want to say no. I want to say that I’ve made compromises too—only our Bluestocking Bonbons boxes are made with recycled paper printed with soy inks, our regular white and brown boxes are stupid dioxin-bleached paper boxes because I don’t have the funds for custom-printed boxes right now (want to loan me $10k? I’ll pay ya back!). I make compromises all the time, even though the number one purpose of my business is not to make compromises. It’s the nature of the world. But this compromise, made by this non-profit in my little town, has been haunting me. And so has my email. It brought up something unpleasant about the ethics of running a capitalist business, about using money to make the world better.
So there we are. I’d love your thoughts on the matter, you smart customers and friends and sweethearts, you.
Oh and Noam, too, if you’re reading this, let me know your thoughts too, OK? Just how hard should I push the ethics angle when selling the chocolates? Noam? Anyone?
Maresa’s vegan deviled eggs. Vegan. Deviled. Eggs!!! That taste and look like….EGGS!
My BFF/right-hand-chocolatier Maresa and I have been talking about making vegan deviled eggs for years. This Thanksgiving we finally got around to it and I think the results are going to change your life forever.
Truthfully, the recipe is more Maresa’s than mine. We both started out tinkering around with a pile of ingredients, a food processor, and some scribbled ideas late in the kitchen one night, but I could feel that she was in hardcore recipe development-mode—her mind was whirring with modifications, improvements, tricks. I went home, and when I showed up at work the next day Reesey excitedly brought out a perfect platter of the little guys. Jacob and I pretty much died, and so did everyone at the friends-Thanksgiving we all went to the next day. Vegans immediately started jumping up and down with excitement, and non-vegans were initially puzzled but quickly entranced by their cleaner, lighter, yet bizarrely authentic taste. After nearly 20 years of missing deviled eggs, I may or may not have teared up a little bit after eating my first one. For reals:
I CAN’T REALLY EXPLAIN IN WORDS HOW AMAZING THESE ARE.
Even if you’re weirded out by eating something shaped like an egg. Someone on Maresa’s business Facebook page (which you should be following) asked why two vegans wanted to make an egg dish so badly, and Maresa’s response articulated my own thoughts perfectly:
Great question! I usually hate stuff like this. We did it for a few reasons: 1. the fun challenge of nailing a taste and texture that are decidedly Not Vegan. 2. Deviled eggs, to me, taste good. I’m not vegan because meat and dairy and eggs taste bad- I’m vegan because those industries are too effed up to support. 3. Nostalgia. My grandma used to make deviled eggs and now she can’t, so someone’s gotta do it, and I’m not going to touch a chicken’s period. That said, Enjoy! Hope you make em if you want em!
Hot damn I have a cool bestie. I know.
Some notes:
1) There are two magic tricks to this recipe, and if you don’t have ‘em both, you can’t make it: black salt and agar powder.
We got the idea to add black salt from Isa’s brunch book, and it’s invaluable—it’s what makes the recipe taste like eggs. You can get it at an Indian market, or you can get it here. Our advice: whatever you do, don’t stick your nose in the bag of it and take a strong whiff.
And agar powder. It’s so easy to use, don’t fiddle with the agar flakes or any other crapola. It’s what makes the recipe feel like eggs, so you can’t make it without it or you’ll just have a puddle of eggy flavors. At work we use prodigious amounts of fancy-pants Ferran Adria’s brand, but any Thai market has Telephone brand agar powder for super cheap—about $1 a packet, which will be plenty for these eggs. (It contains a teeny amount of potentially artificial vanilla, which Lagusta’s Luscious can’t abide, in case you’re wondering why we can’t just save money and use it too.)
2) If you don’t have an egg mold, who cares? Square devils might not convert omnis so easily, but who cares about them? Make them in ice cube trays, little bowls, whatever. But once you start looking for an egg mold, I bet you’ll find one. The mold we used for this initial run is a giant metal one Maresa found at The Salv. Or, online: look at these cuties, or this one, for $90, that makes many petite eggs, or this sturdy workhorse. When I go to Montreal this spring to stock up on chocolate molds at Chocolate Chocolat, this mini-mold is going into my cart tout de suite. And maybe this cool textured one too. As Maresa points out in her cute first step (you can see the whole recipe on FB at that link, too), if you get a vintage mold, be sure to WASH WASH WASH.
3) This recipe is shamefully easy. Be prepared. The only thing is that two of the measurements are in grams (we work in grams, sorry!). If you make this recipe and have access to both a gram scale and regular ol’ cups and spoons, tell me the conversions & I’ll love ya forever. Even better, buy a gram scale! They’re only like $20, and it will change your cooking life.
Maresa’s Deviled Eggs
Make the whites:
450 g unsweetened soymilk (Maresa used Silk)
2 t agar powder
1/4 t black salt
Bring all ingredients to a boil. Pour into molds and refrigerate until set up (about 30 minutes).
When the whites set up, use a teaspoon measure (or melon baller) to scoop a bit out. This is where you will pipe the yellows.
(Maresa’s giant mold is the size of avocados, yep. She also made some tinier ones in circular chocolate molds, but we ate them before we could photograph them…)
Make the yolks:
430 g extra firm tofu (but I’d wager any kind would work just fine)
4 T Vegenaise (as a general rule, I loathe Vegenaise and Nayonaise and all that crap, but they work for this recipe. If you want to concoct something out of almonds or cashews, I’m sure it will be great too.)
6 T olive oil
2 t mustard
2 t white wine vinegar
1 ¼ t salt
¾ t black salt
1 t turmeric
Put all ingredients in food processor. Whiz until smooth. (In the LL kitchen, “whiz” is the parlance of choice to mean “process/blend/combine”)
Using an open star tip and pastry bag, pipe yellows into whites. Garnish with paprika.
Done!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to look for deviled egg platters at Goodwill. Happy egging!
holiday shipping dates
I just put this message on the website, but thought I’d toss it up here too:
HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!
IMPORTANT CHRISTMAS SHIPPING NOTES:
DECEMBER 19 IS OUR LAST SHIPPING DAY FOR PRIORITY SHIPPING AND DECEMBER 21 THE LAST SHIPPING DAY FOR OVERNIGHT SHIPPING.
Thus, since we make chocolates from scratch, chocolates need to be *ordered* by December 17 for Priority Shipping and December 19 for Express Shipping. Thank you!
Holiday buying guide
Happy holiday season!
We’re ramping up like crazy right now in anticipation of our busiest season of the year. Here are a few guidelines for holiday ordering:
-First of all, I’m worried. In the past, the website has been our sole revenue stream, but now we have the shop–but we don’t have a much larger workforce to handle all the orders. We’re growing slowly, but this season is going to be crazy for us. Thus, there is a slight possibility we might need to close down website orders early this year. So I highly recommend placing orders early and including a note with what date you’d like them shipped out by. Better safe than sorry!
Now on to what chocolates to order!
A few notes:
-Keep in mind that many of our chocolates are made with farm-fresh ingredients and should be eaten within a week or two. Most will last weeks at cool room temperature, or in a sealed container in the refrigerator.
Solid chocolates that will keep weeks at cool room temperature:
–All of the bars and barks! Yay!
–The Intense Anatomical Hearts
–Ye Olde Vulvaz!
–The fabulous Vandana Shivas
Filled chocolates that should be eaten within three weeks:
–The Croissant-Infused Caramels.
–The RSSC! (that is: Rosemary Sea Salt Caramels!)
–Pauline Benjamin’s PB Cups
Truffles and other filled chocolates that should be eaten within 1.5-2 weeks:
–The Pyramids
–The Raspberries de Pizan
–All the truffles!
40+ uses for miso! YES!
First, check out my miso primer post. Then, let’s get down to business.
40 (plus!) uses for Miso:
- As an emulsifier. If you make salad dressings at home, you will quickly tire of using mustard as an emulsifier for simple vinaigrettes. White miso works just as well (if not better) at helping those continual enemies, oil and water, to play nicely together. Be sure to use less salt than usual when using miso in dressings.
- As the star ingredient in a salad dressing. Though a touch of miso can help to emulsify a standard vinaigrette without contributing much flavor of its own, it can also anchor many different salad dressings. Here are a few ideas:
- Miso-tahini dressing: The health food restaurant classic. Blend together white or brown miso, tahini, a neutral oil like grape seed, shoyu, and a little garlic chile sauce (if desired), minced garlic (if desired), ginger juice (make ginger juice by grating ginger then squeezing out the juice), brown rice or apple cider vinegar (lemon juice is also nice), and fresh pepper to taste. Add water to make a smooth consistency.
- Caesar salad dressing: There’s a guideline for a recipe here.
- Lime-sesame-peanut dressing. Combine peanut butter, agave nectar or maple syrup, sesame oil, white miso, brown rice vinegar, shoyu, and lime juice to taste. If you have any lime oil (Boyajian makes wonderful citrus oils), add a dash as well. Blend with warm water to make a smooth consistency.
- Ginger-carrot miso vinaigrette: Combine grated carrots, minced or juiced ginger (use a Japanese ginger grater to get ginger juice quickly and easily), a tiny amount of minced garlic, rice wine vinegar, a spoonful of your favorite miso, and toasted sesame oil and olive oil. Combine well, then taste and adjust flavors as necessary.
- Vinaigrette with chai spices:
½ ts orange oil or juice and zest from one small orange
1 Tb. sugar
¼ c white wine vinegar
¼ ts sea salt
1 ts. ground cardamom
1 ts. ground cinnamon
½ ts. ground cloves
½ ts. ground white pepper
1 Tb. red miso
2/3 c olive oil
2 Tb. water
Combine all ingredients except oil in a blender jar. Blend while drizzling in olive oil. Add water if dressing seems too thick. Taste and adjust flavors as necessary.
- As an all-purpose flavor booster. When making hearty, rich dishes that traditionally contain veal or beef stock, a spoonful of hearty red miso adds an amino acid/umami flavor boost and depth of flavor.
- With an acid. Miso + something tangy and acidic are natural mates–the zestiness of lemon juice (pictured above is some amazing black bean miso I made, waiting to be blended with another fermentation project–preserved lemons) or vinegar (brown rice is always nice) makes most any dish sing just a little louder.
- As part of a smooth, creamy sauce for steamed or roasted vegetables. For my meal delivery service, I used to serve a springy dish of steamed newborn turnips (hey, that blog post is so great–go read it!) (Hakurei turnips are a mild, sweet, creamy, juicy Japanese variety that several farmers near me–and maybe you?–grow) with an inch or so of their green tops attached with a simple miso sauce made from olive oil whisked together with white miso, rice vinegar, mirin (or sake or white wine), sugar or agave syrup, and some shoyu.
- As a glaze for sautéed vegetables. Combine vegetables that have been sautéed until just beginning to brown with a glaze made from white miso, rice vinegar, tahini, minced fresh ginger, shoyu, sesame oil, and sugar. Cook over medium heat until glaze is slightly thickened, then season to taste with sea salt and fresh pepper.
- Slather on vegetables, then broil. Miso-glazed broiled vegetables make a perfect weeknight dinner: Mix sweet white miso with some sake, shoyu, mirin, and sugar, then slather on thick slices of eggplant, summer squash, or portobello mushrooms and broil until bubbly. This also works well with tofu.
- In Japan, there is a tradition of dengaku cooking, which refers to foods that have been grilled, then coated with the above mixture and grilled again.
- Add a little as a secret ingredient in homemade red curry.
- Hearty pasta sauces benefit from a little white or red miso stirred in at the end of cooking–a tomato sauce enriched with red wine, plus a little miso, is pretty amazing.
- Of course: miso soup!
miso soup!
For a boost of flavor and nutrition, you can add a spoonful of miso to any soup. Or, try my quick favorite miso-enriched soup recipe: bring water to a boil, and add any sea veggies you happen to have on hand, (kombu is perfect) as well as any leftover chopped vegetables you need to use up. (If you want the rich flavor that sea vegetables contribute but not the texture or direct flavor, just strain them out after simmering for twenty minutes or so and before adding the vegetables). In a big bowl, add a little bit of this broth and mix with your favorite miso. Add cooked rice or noodles (or quinoa, cous cous, millet, Bhutanese red rice—the list is endless!), some chopped greens if you have them, then fill up the bowl with the broth. Garnish with slivered scallions, if available. Not flavorful enough? Add more miso. Add hot pepper sauce and shoyu to taste, and I often add some brown rice vinegar and a dash of toasted sesame oil as well.
- A spoonful of miso blended into thick bean soups adds great depth and richness.
- Miso gravy. I made this recipe for years at Bloodroot, and it’s one of the most comforting sauces you will ever encounter. Caramelize lots of onions (plus sliced shiitake mushrooms, if you have them) in an obscene amount of olive oil. Add a lot of sliced garlic (sometimes I add some ancho chile powder, too) then whisk in a handful of flour, a bit of dried basil and thyme, and a cup or more of dark beer. Add a big scoop of red miso and a big scoop of nutritional yeast, some tomato paste and some shoyu. Add water and whisk until it’s smooth and saucy. Let this gravy bubble away for 20 minutes or so, then put it over mashed potatoes, stuffed vegetables…or just straight up in a shot glass.
- Whisk a little miso with olive oil and spices, brush on sliced kabocha squash or other wintery roots & roast.
- I use a few spoonfuls of white miso in my homemade tamale batter to boost flavor.
- In nut-based cream sauces. See info and recipes here.
- In pesto. Adding just a tiny spoonful of white miso in pesto can help emulsify the mixture, and also contributes a cheesy richness.
- Miso (any type) and stone-ground mustard makes a wonderful condiment—use it anywhere you use mustard.
- In a cream layer for lasagna and savory baked casseroles. I make a polenta torte that consists of layers of cooked polenta (which has been poured onto a sheet pan and chilled until firm), tomato sauce, sautéed mushrooms, and a filling made from a bit of white miso, garlic, tofu, cashews, nutritional yeast, shoyu, white wine vinegar, and basil. Combine everything in a high-speed blender or food processor and mix until smooth. Taste and adjust flavors as necessary, then layer in a casserole dish and bake in a 375°F oven until bubbly.
- In the Classic Sichuan dish Ma-po Tofu. I’ll post my recipe soon!
- Make a quick Korean Barbecue Sauce with minced garlic and ginger, paprika, cayenne (optional), white miso, toasted sesame oil, and shoyu. Use on baked tofu or tempeh, or toss with sautéed vegetables like baby bok choy and summer squash, then garnish with sesame seeds and slivered scallions. I’ve been making this dish for years, but I believe the original idea came from a Millennium cookbook.
- Sweet white miso is lovely spooned into a bowl of hot oatmeal, grits, or cooked grains, along with maple syrup and fruit.
- White miso whisked with olive oil is great on fresh corn on the cob in summertime.
- Miso ice cream! I’ve done it! Just add a small teaspoon to your (vegan) ice cream mixture and mix well. This is especially good with strongly flavored ice creams where the bold flavor of miso contributes a nice salty hit but doesn’t overpower.
- I asked a few friends on Facebook for their miso tips, and the great Sandor Katz recommended savory oatmeal with miso & peanut butter. Sounds like a perfect winter breakfast. I’d sneak in some maple syrup, too.
- Miso pickles. Speaking of Sandor: there is a long tradition of pickling vegetables in miso in Japan. See Sandor Katz’s book Wild Fermentation for a detailed recipe.
- A bit of red miso livens up homemade tomato sauce, especially thick, rich, long-cooking winter tomato sauces.
- Any marinade for tofu, tempeh, or vegetables is better with a bit of miso added.
- A really fine miso, like the ones made with farm-fresh vegetables from South River Miso, are wonderful spread directly on good crackers, and even better when mixed with a little tahini and spread on crackers.
- If you’re fond of the Australian condiments Marmite or Vegemite, think of miso as a Japanese version of them, and use it wherever you use these condiments (which I must admit I find terribly bizarre).
- Blend a bit of red miso into your favorite bean dip recipe.
- I love mashed potatoes with a tiny bit of barley miso added.
- A great sandwich spread is mashed avocado with a drizzle of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, chopped sun-dried tomatoes, a bit of red miso, shoyu, and a whisper of garlic (usually I just rub it on the bread). This is a variation of a sandwich the great Bloodroot restaurant, where I worked for years, makes.
- Any sauce that needs a little thickening benefits from a bit of miso whisked in.
- The quickest vegetable stock in the world: boil water with vegetable trimmings and, ideally, some good seaweed like a big strip of dulse, and a little bit of red miso.
- Bonus! My sous chef Pippa reports that she once made a cocktail with miso. She says: “I tried it in a cocktail once, blended very well with simple syrup, cucumber vodka and fresh basil. It was awesome!”
- Bonus! Speaking of sweets, try adding a tiny bit of sweet white miso to caramel sauce, cookies, and other sweet treats. It’s pretty amazing.
Have fun!
All about miso: the soy [or not] food with culture.
We sell our homemade miso at the shop, so I thought I’d write a little about how I use miso and why I love this ingredient so much.
My love for miso is too large to be contained in just one post, so here is a pair of miso posts: today’s is a primer on what exactly miso is, and tomorrow I’ll post a truly huge list of amazing tips, techniques and recipes for your miso.
Miso is a power ingredient, and it’s my firm belief that no kitchen should be without a jar of white and a jar of red miso. First of all: what exactly is miso?
The red miso pictured above, before two years of fermentation made it red.
Good question. Miso is a fermented bean paste. It’s a salty, umami-rich ingredient that lends depth, richness, and body to any dish it touches. In fact, tamari (wheat-free quality fermented soy sauce) has traditionally been made from the liquid exuded from fermenting miso. Miso often works very well to replace soy sauce or sea salt, and though it is of Japanese origin, its flavor can compliment many kinds of dishes. The trick is in knowing what kind of miso to choose. Different types of miso can refer to either how fermented the miso is, or to what ingredients are in it.
The vast majority of misos in the world contain soybeans, but homemade miso can contain whatever beans and grains you like. For the past decade or so I have been making miso myself. It’s a deeply satisfying practice that I can’t recommend enough. I have made miso with many different beans, grains, and even vegetables. Making miso is a simple process, but the fermentation times can be long. The feeling of accomplishment in unpacking a crock of one-, two-, or three-year old miso is intense. For a great recipe for making your own miso, Sandor Katz’s Wild Fermentation is a wonderful reference.
If you’re not up for making your own miso from scratch, you can buy wonderful miso in every health food store. In the Northeast, my favorite brand of store-bought miso is South River. It is made in small batches with care, and many seasonal varieties are often available. Miso Master is another readily available quality brand.
There are two primary types of soybean miso available in the United States: red and white. White miso is fermented for only a few months, and is therefore much lighter in color and less salty. It is often called “sweet miso” and has such a tame, mellow flavor that it pairs well with all kinds of dishes. On the far other end of the spectrum, red miso is a bold, rich, tangy paste that has been fermented for several years. The only difference between red and white miso is the level of salt and the fermentation time—the fermentation process is what changes the color from white to red.
The miso pictured above, while fermenting.
Brown miso, which is a middle ground between white and red, is often available as well, as are misos made with rice, chickpeas, barley, and more. They are all delicious, and all contribute slightly different flavors to dishes. Experiment to see which you like the best.
When buying miso, make sure that it is refrigerated and labeled “unpasteurized,” or “live.” Cheaper shelf-stable misos have been heat-treated and are devoid of the beneficial bacteria that make real miso one of the healthiest foods you can eat.
Speaking of that beneficial bacteria, several of the techniques listed in tomorrow’s list of miso recipes will, indeed, kill it by heating it. This is not ideal from a health standpoint, but even miso that has been boiled or baked is a superbly healthy product. If you are buying miso that you know will be heated, you might want to save a few dollars and buy the shelf-stable brands, as long as they are organic or state that the soybeans are not genetically modified.
For more information on the health benefits of miso, the vintage classic The Book of Miso has all the info you need, and lots more.
Once you have your miso, it can be stored in your refrigerator almost indefinitely, slowly improving with age. But there are many reasons not to let it languish on a shelf in the refrigerator–coming tomorrow, 40 uses for miso!
