How to Cook with Miso: Learn from Michelin Chefs

Our Michelin Chefs Cook series takes different ingredients or dishes for each edition to show you how some of our favourite Michelin-starred chefs prepare and serve them on video. Here, we look at the umami-rich cooking essential from Japan, miso.

You know miso, because even if you’ve never cooked with it, you have tasted it in the form of the sad mirky soup accompanying your sushi at your local not-so-fancy Japanese restaurant. But miso is so much more - this funky soybean paste is a great flavour enhancer to otherwise bland ingredients and being a naturally fermented product it contains probiotics that are good for the gut.

We’ve got our eyes on miso - we are predicting it is a food trend for 2019.

So here are video recipes by five Michelin-starred chefs cooking with miso to help you jump onto the miso bandwagon this year. From a basic but very proper miso soup by top sushi chef Yochinori Ishii, to an easy miso glazed salmon by Gordon Ramsay, find out how to incorporate this modern day pantry essential in your own daily cooking.

5 Michelin Starred Chefs Cook with Miso

1. Yoshinori Ishii’s Perfect Japanese Miso Soup

Multiple award winning, 2-Michelin star chef of Umu in London, Yoshinori Ishii shows you how to make real miso soup. He breaks down miso soup into its components and demystifies the different types of miso which is useful even for those already familiar with the paste. Building on a basic tofu miso soup, towards the end of the video you will find out how to prepare three others: one with meat and vegetables, one with fish and finally a shellfish miso soup. It’s the perfect video to get your grounds covered.

2. Gordon Ramsay’s Miso Salmon

Chef Ramsay makes a miso poached salmon soup. Salmon is poached in a miso-based stock, along with chilli, ginger and kaffire lime then served with miso flavoured vegetables. Great tips on how to properly poach a salmon fillet in a pan, no sous vide machine required.

3. David Chang’s Corn Miso

David Chang makes corn miso - that’s corn with miso butter, bacon, ramen stock then topped off with a poached egg. Easy, fast and comforting.

4. Jun Tanaka’s Grilled Mackerel with Miso and Fennel Salad

Japanese British chef Jun Tanaka cut his teeth under the Roux Brothers and Marco Pierre White, before opening his own restaurant in London, The Ninth (one star Michelin). He cooks up mackerel with miso glaze, with a fennel salad that comes together in no time.

5. Nick Edgar’s Halibut with Miso and Wild Prawns

Chef Nick Edgar, formerly of the Michelin-starred restaurants Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons and the Samling Hotel, cooks up a poached halibut with a miso rub, served with vegetables prepared three ways - raw, pickled and boiled.