April 19, 2018

Mixing Miso and Sake Kasu (Lees) Together for Longevity/長寿のため味噌と酒粕を混ぜる

One of the drawbacks of Japanese cuisine is that many dishes turn out quite salty because of the heavy use of salt, soy sauce, and miso. In addition, for every Japanese meal, soup, often miso soup, is not optional but required. If you follow the Japanese eating custom for every meal of the day, you will consume a considerable amount of salt.
One way to reduce the intake of salt is to cut back on the amount of miso added to your miso soup. To do so, you can mix miso and sake kasu together in advance, like I did yesterday.
和食の欠点の一つは、塩、しょう油、味噌を多用するので、塩辛くなる料理が多くなるということです。その上、和食では、汁(多くの場合、味噌汁)は省略可ではなく、必須です。一日の食事すべてで日本の食習慣に従うと、かなりの量の塩を摂取することになります。
塩の摂取量を減らす一つの方法は、味噌汁に入れる味噌の量を減らすことです。そのためには、私が昨日やったように、味噌と酒粕を事前に混ぜておいてもいいです。
 
500 g miso (home-made miso, made by my father)
500 g sake kasu
味噌(父が作った手作り味噌) 500 g
酒粕 500 g
 
If sake kasu is fridge-cold, leave it at room temperature for some time to soften.
酒粕が冷蔵庫に入れておいて冷たい場合は、しばらく室温に置いておき、柔らかくします。
 

Adding some sake lees to miso soup, thereby reducing the amount of miso added is not my idea. This has been practiced for decades in Nagano prefecture, which now has Japan's highest longevity rate.
味噌汁に酒粕を入れることで、加える味噌の量を減らすというのは、私のアイディアではなく、長野県で何十年も行われてきたことです。長野県は、今では日本で一番の長寿県になっています。

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4 comments:

Amy said...

Hiroyuki, does the taste of miso soup differ from regular miso soup when you add sake kasu to it?

Hiroyuki said...

Amy: Yes, it does, and in a good way. I enjoy the flavor of sake kasu in miso soup although I'm not a big fan of sake kasu. My sister, who stayed here for several days to attend the "shiju ku nichi" (lit. 49th day) memorial service for my dead mother, said she liked it even though she didn't care for sake kasu.

Hiroyuki said...

Forgot to mention that miso and sake kasu are often mixed together to make a pickling bed for fish, meat, and vegetables. Ingredients thus pickled can be very delicious!
For example, you can find images of such fish by doing a google image search for
味噌 酒粕 魚

Amy said...

Ohhhhh, this is so interesting! I really wish I could get fresh sake kasu near me, but there's no nearby sake brewery in Chicago :D I wonder if you can buy it frozen - I'll have to check our local Japanese and Korean shops!

I really love fish that's been marinated/pickled in miso like in those images - especially mackerel. I bet it's heavenly marinated in miso and sake kasu.