After sharing our soy-marinated shiso, we wanted to offer you another way to enjoy these fragrant leaves. This time we made shiso miso — a savory, gently sweet paste of miso, sesame oil and chopped shiso — and brought it to the table with smashed cucumbers and egg fried rice.
The cucumbers are cool and crunchy, with a little miso on each piece. Stirred into warm rice, the same paste carries its seasoning and its fragrance through the whole bowl. One small batch gives you a few ways to enjoy the leaves, whether you have some left from another recipe or bought them especially for this one.
Makes about 90 g · About 15 minutes
Ingredients
- 10 shiso leaves
- 3 Tbsp awase miso (a blended miso)
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 Tbsp sake
- ½ Tbsp toasted sesame oil
- 1 tsp toasted white sesame seeds
We measure with a 15 ml tablespoon and a 5 ml teaspoon.
How to make it
- Chop the shiso. Trim the stems off the leaves and chop them coarsely.
- Start everything else together. Put the miso, sugar, sake, sesame oil and sesame seeds in a small saucepan and stir them over low heat.
- Cook it down. Keep stirring as it loosens and then thickens — it catches easily. It is ready when the sugar has dissolved and a spoon drawn through leaves a clean line on the bottom of the pan.
- Add the shiso last. Stir the leaves in just until they soften, and take the pan off the heat while they are still green.
Spoon what you don't use into a clean container and refrigerate it. Use a clean spoon each time, and finish it within two or three days.
Two ways to eat it
Smashed cucumber. Tap two cucumbers with a rolling pin — the flat of a heavy knife also works — until they split, then tear or cut them into pieces. The rough, torn surfaces hold the miso where a clean cut would not. Put about two tablespoons of shiso miso in a small dish beside them and let everyone add as much as they like.
Fried rice. Two bowls of cooked rice (about 300 g), two eggs, a tablespoon of sesame oil. Scramble the eggs in the pan, add the rice, then stir in the shiso miso at the end so it doesn't scorch — start with a spoonful, taste, and add more up to about two tablespoons. Spoon a little extra on top and let everyone stir it in at the table.
Both of these came to the table on the same afternoon, out of one small pan.
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— Yan & Keiko