Misozuke (pickling in miso (fermented soybean paste)) (味噌漬け)

Misozuke is vegetable, meat, or fish pickled in miso paste (bean paste).

Summary

It is salty tsukemono (Japanese pickles) and preserves for a long time. Dark-brown miso paste is usually used. What is different from pickles made in rice-bran paste is that miso paste itself is for eating and seasoning. Especially permeated flavor of miso paste is favored.

Pickled ingredients such as Japanese white radish, carrot, burdock root, or cucumber, are used after they are sun-dried or after kageboshi (drying a thing in the shade), or after once pickled in salt and drained.

For example, to make Misozuke of eggplants, pick eggplants in the beginning of fall and wash them with the calyx. Pickle them in salty water of 3.6 liter of salt and 4.5 liter of water for three to four days with weight. Take them out from the water, drain, and dry in the air for about a day. Pile up dark-brown miso paste of good quality with 1.26 to 1.44 liter of mirin (sweet cooking rice wine) and 3.75 kgs of the eggplants of the above alternately. Seal the top with bamboo skin and store in cool place for about half a year after sealing up. If you want to pickle for a longer time, it is better to replace with new miso paste.

[Original Japanese]