'Chiso' 🧀 cheesy miso sprinkle
In cooking, I usually find that shiro miso gives a better flavour than nutritional yeast (affectionately known as ‘nooch’). But, seeing that miso comes in a wet paste form, it’s no good for sprinkling on pasta. Why not just use nooch then? Well, I like it, but it does have a dry, dusty quality to it. And my love for miso cannot be so easily forgotten.
Hence, after a bit of dehydrator experimentation, I present: chiso, a cheesy miso sprinkle. Can be used to add a powerful umami punch to soups, salads, pasta, etc. Although it’s also a flaky powder, the texture is not so dry and sawdusty as nooch.
Here’s a prelimary recipe after my first experiments, but I may update it later!
It’s very easy to make; the only hard-to-find ingredient is patience 😅
'Chiso' 🧀 cheesy miso sprinkle
Preparation time 5 mins. Dehydrator time 7.5 hours total.
Requires baking parchment, silicone spatula, dehydrator oven or a fan oven that goes as low as 60°C (140°F).
This recipe makes one 20 x 28 cm sheet of chiso, the size of one dehydrator tray in my dehydrator. You may wish to make a larger amount.
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp shiro (light-coloured) miso
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- ¼ tsp onion powder
Instructions
1. Set your dehydrator to 60°C (140°F).
2. Cut a sheet of baking parchment to match the size of your dehydrator tray (this recipe makes enough to cover one 20 x 28 cm tray).
3. Mix up the ingredients well with a fork in a small vessel. Use a silicone spatula to scoop it all up and spread it very thinly and very evenly over the parchment.
4. Put in the dehydrator for two hours. Then remove the tray and carefully peel the miso leather off the baking parchment.
5. Return the miso sheet to the dehydrator without the parchment (i.e. put it straight on the mesh dehydrator tray) and leave it in for five and a half hours.
6. Remove the sheet carefully and let it cool off for a minute on the mesh tray. It will go from leathery to brittle quite quickly. Then you can crumble it into a mortar and pestle and break it down to the desired flake size.
Store in an airtight container.