Add miso, versatile and complex, to this sticky toffee pudding | Canada Voices

Miso has been an essential ingredient in Japanese cuisine for thousands of years. The paste – made from soybeans (and often rice or barley) with salt and koji, a culture used in the fermentation of miso, sake, soy sauce and vinegar – is wonderfully versatile and complex.

Beyond traditional Japanese dishes, miso’s savoury-umami quality adds depth to Bolognese and other sauces, soups, stews and braises, and complexity to plant-based dishes, particularly in the absence of browned meat. Lighter miso is delicious in vinaigrettes and finishing sauces, stovetop pastas and all kinds of stir-fries.

With so many varieties and so much potential in the kitchen, miso is the focus of one of the main chapters in Tuscany-based cookbook author Emiko Davies’s seventh and latest book, The Japanese Pantry: From Sake to Soy, Essential Ingredients for Japanese Home Cooking.

“Miso is made differently by each individual producer, so you could say there are endless types of miso,” says Davies in an e-mail. If you’re wondering what kind to choose, she advises looking at the colour to identify its general category. “White miso, the most delicate, is also the most pale and is best for pairing with more delicate flavours and ingredients, like seafood,” she says. “Then you have brown miso, which is the most versatile and common – perfect for miso soup. Red miso is the one with the strongest, deepest flavour and also the darkest colour … the one I reach for when I am making dengaku sauce to spread over fried or roast eggplant.”

She also notes you can customize your own miso by mixing various types together. “Try it out, just mix and taste,” she says. “My mother likes to do this for a more complex miso soup.”

And because sweet things benefit from salt as a flavour enhancer and the contrast of added umami, miso is also a delicious addition to desserts and other sweets. “Add a touch to your chocolate brownies or to caramel sauce to drizzle over ice cream or pancakes,” says Davies. “The salt brings out the flavour of chocolate, and a little bit in caramel is reminiscent of salted caramel.”

Sticky toffee miso pudding

There are few better vehicles for caramel sauce than a sticky toffee pudding – a wonderful place to incorporate miso. This is a fairly simple toffee sauce, but you could add a spoonful of miso along with the cream to caramelized sugar in any sauce recipe.

• 225g (8 oz) pitted dates, chopped
• 1 1/4 cups strong coffee or boiling water
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda

Miso sticky toffee sauce:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup golden or maple syrup
• 1 cup whipping cream
• 1 tbsp miso, or to taste

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Put the dates into a bowl or measuring cup and pour the hot coffee or water over them. Let them sit for about 20 minutes while you grease or line an eight-inch deep round pan or springform pan (or even a bundt pan) with parchment and mix up the batter.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until light; beat in the eggs one at a time, and then the vanilla. Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir the baking soda into the cooled (but still warm) dates. Add half the flour mixture to the butter mixture, then add the dates and then the remaining flour.

Pour into the pan, smooth the top and bake for about an hour and 15 minutes, until deep golden and springy to the touch. If it’s darkening too quickly, cover loosely with foil and turn the oven down to about 300 F until it bakes through.

To make the sauce, combine the butter, sugar and syrup in a saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Cook for a few minutes, whisking often. Remove from the heat and stir in the cream and miso, then warm over low heat, stirring until the sauce is smooth and homogenous.

Serve the sticky toffee pudding in wedges, in a pool of the toffee sauce, with more poured over top.

Serves about eight.