[My Family Recipe 19] Secret Recipe! Pork Miso
This is an original dish created by Usako's paternal grandmother. It is not the common 'miso-marinated pork.' Everyone in my family loved it and we ate it often. It has a sweet and savory miso flavor, and since we simmer it down until it's soft and pour it over rice, it is truly a home-cooked meal.
If you are interested, please try making it, even if just with half the amount.
How to make Pork Miso (enough for 5 people in a 24cm diameter pot)
Pork (either thinly sliced belly or chopped pieces) about 400 grams
Taro root: 4 large ones
Onion: 1.5 onions
Konjac: 1 block
Other vegetables (1/2 daikon radish, 1 carrot, 1 pack of mushrooms, etc.)
Dashi stock pack: 1
Sugar: about 4 tablespoons
Miso of your choice: about 1 ladleful
Cut the pork, vegetables, and konjac into bite-sized pieces and put them in a pot. Add enough water to cover, the dashi pack, and sugar, then simmer.
Once the ingredients are cooked until soft, dissolve the miso into the pot.
Once it starts to simmer, bring it to the table. Keep it warm and enjoy it served over white rice.
The image is like a reduced, sweet pork miso soup. As you eat it while it's piping hot, the ingredients like taro start to break down and the moisture decreases, but that's exactly what makes it good. You'll keep wanting seconds. Second-day pork miso is also the best.
The only thing we can use on the table at the Usata household is a portable gas stove. However, there's no need to cook it any further, so a warming plate (or electric heater!?) would also work. It burns easily, so please be careful and keep it on very low heat.
In winter it's "pork miso," and in summer it's "doronko" (I'll share that recipe another time)... eating these dishes reminds me of my father and grandmother. It's a taste passed down through three generations that appears on special days; I wonder if my children will carry it on too?