Winter is the season for many things in Minnesota, one of them being soup. It got me thinking about somehow incorporating one of Winters great pleasures with one of Summers great pleasures…ICE CREAM!
I’ve been reading a new cookbook I received as a birthday gift, and it has inspired new ideas and thoughts pertaining to cooking that are refreshing. For those of us into cooking, I think it is common to get a new book, and obsess over it for a few weeks or even months. So that’s where I’m at, and although the book is not a cookbook of Asian influence, it opened my mind to work with something I hadn’t thought about in ice cream before…Miso.
This is white Miso paste, aka “shiromiso” purchased at United Noodles in Minneapolis. If you have never been or are interested in Asian cooking, United Noodles is the bomb digity. It’s the largest Asian grocery in the Midwest. Go there!
Traditionally Miso is made from fermented rice, soybeans and/or barley mashed into a paste with salt. It originated in Japan and is used to season soups, sauces, vegetables, etc. If you’ve eaten at a Japanese restaurant you’ve likely seen Miso soup on the menu, if not slurped one down.
It’s flavor will be different depending on the type of Miso you buy, but the white Miso we used here has a sweet, salt, nutty flavor that is reminiscent of Parmigiano-Reggiano…deeeeelish.
Here we have Black Sesame Seeds, much like the more common variety of pale sesame. They get toasted and tossed in toward the end of the churn. They round out this flavor offering another dimension of nuttiness to the already nutty Miso.
Miso Black Sesame Ice Cream! It’s one of the great pleasures of all seasons in FrozBroz country.
Like to try some? As we do every week, we’ll be giving away two pints of this flavor. Just leave a comment on our facebook page to be entered into the drawing. If you don’t have a facebook account, leave a comment right here on the blog. We’ll draw two winners on Friday afternoon (3/2/2012) at 4pm and will announce them on our facebook page. Our only conditions are you must be able to pick it up here in Minneapolis, and be willing to give us a little feedback that can be shared with everyone else. Good luck!