My Week With Red Miso Paste

I have been in a culinary rut for a bit. I decided that the rut had to end and decided to get myself out of it by challenging myself to use an ingredient that I had not used before. As you might have guessed by now that ingredient was red miso paste. What is is? Well in essence it is fermented soybeans with some rice or barley thrown into the mix. Red miso is usually fermented for over a year and has a very robust and salty taste. If you want a little more in-depth information about miso check out this Wikipedia link that really gets into the knitty gritty of this awesome and very versatile Japanese staple.

I will start off with the first of two dishes I made with my challenge ingredient. I call it Tilapia in Red Miso Maple Glaze. Since I am flying mostly solo these days I made this recipe that is supposed to be for one but really could feed two.

1 Tilapia Fillet (usually about 3/4 lb)
1 TBSP Red Miso Paste
2 TBSP Maple Syrup
1 TBSP Olive Oil/Sesame Oil
1 Garlic clove - Minced
Optional Ingredient - Black figs

Preheat Oven to 380 degrees Fahrenheit. mix your miso paste and maple syrup together. Take your tilapia filet and spinkle the oil and garlic over it and massage them on the fillet. Add the miso maple syrup mixture and coat the fillet with it. Let the fillet rest in this nice mix for about 10 minutes. As an option I got some black figs and sliced them thinly and placed the slices on top of the fillet.

On a baking dish place a piece of foil large enough to wrap around the Tilapia fillet. Place your fillet right in the middle and fold the foil over it to contain the heat and allow the fish to sort of poach in all the wonderful liquid it was marinating in. Bake for about 20 minutes. As an added step, since I like a little crispiness, I placed the fillet under the Broiler for about 4 minutes which caramelized those figs nicely.

To serve you can either accompany your fillet with some rice and a steamed vegetable or like me you can place it on top of a nice massaged kale salad garnished with some dried cranberries.

Enjoy.

I will give you the other recipe on the next post. I am tired and need my beauty sleep.