This week has been pretty excellent in the “spontaneous cooking” realm. I’ve gotten into a good groove these past months of balancing planning and impulse—I plan ahead just enough to have rough outlines of what to cook and eat, and then I fill in the rest in the moment.
For example, I’ve been making lots of big lunch salads with cooked black lentils, but every day it’s a little different. Maybe I’ll have cold lentils over arugula with minty yogurt and warm sautéed zucchini, or I’ll have warm lentils stirred into carrot ginger soup. Yesterday I piled lots of greens into a bowl, then warmed cooked lentils in a skillet with cubes of roasted sweet potato, some olive oil, and a dollop of miso paste. I spooned that over the greens, then in the still-hot pan, I poured more olive oil and added a few handfuls of breadcrumbs, toasting them for a minute while shaking the pan. I poured that over the salad and voila. Lunch.
Dinner is usually mapped out ahead of time—but we all have our moments. Yesterday I got back from a bike ride and a quick swim around 5:15, only to realize that I’d just completely forgotten about dinner. Just…forgotten. Entirely. (MY MIND IS A SIEVE. Can I blame this on childbirth: y/n? Don’t answer that.)
I rummaged in the fridge and the freezer and the pantry. I unearthed the following: more leftover roasted sweet potatoes. BUTTER (I am fully and always stocked with Vermont Creamery’s very good cultured butter!). Frozen chopped spinach. A box of rice pilaf.
Okay! The rice pilaf goes in a pot of boiling water, the timer set for 20 minutes. I run upstairs and shower. (Just between you and me, I then put on navy blue Eberjey pajamas with white piping and a Burt’s Bees face mask because I AM FANCY and hopefully my neighbors didn’t see me cooking in the aforementioned mask like an absolute weirdo/extra in a Sephora commercial). I run back downstairs and turn off the rice, fluffing it with a fork and setting it aside.
I pull out a skillet and add a (very large) chunk of cultured butter and a tablespoon or so of miso paste. I let that melt, swirling the pan, then I add the frozen spinach and sweet potatoes. I cook it all (no salt! there’s plenty in the miso) and stir occasionally until the potatoes start to look golden and a little crispy on some sides.
I spoon the rice into shallow bowls, then add the rest on top, and sprinkle some toasted sesame seeds over it all.
I mean, should I get an award or something for this? Domestic goddess? My own cooking show? A million dollars for successfully showering and brushing my hair and drinking enough water today and making dinner and kissing a baby upwards of 100 times?
Probably, yes. Go ahead and send me a gold star.
The point of this is actually not to talk endlessly about my numerous great qualities (I AM KIDDING, unless you’d really like to, in which case let’s do it), but to remind you that you should be putting miso in nearly everything you make.
Miso—I have determined—is a somewhat magical ingredient. An instant recipe enhancer. I’ve talked about it plenty here (and recently when I wrote about miso banana bread), but it really does add so much flavor to food. If you use just a little, it will make a dish more complex and interesting and savory without fighting with the other ingredients. If you use a lot, it’ll add its own miso flavor which is nice for recipes where you don’t have another dominant flavor (like herbs or cheese, for example).
I’ve been experimenting more and more with adding miso to baked goods (like cookies and cakes and banana bread), to great success each time. But oddly enough, it’s never occurred to me until now to put it into biscuits.
Biscuits! They’re already savory and buttery and a blank canvas, flavor-wise. And it turns out miso is excellent in them. I like a plain miso biscuit (although I often sprinkle a little Parmesan on top before baking as I did here), but you could add some other complementary ingredients, like toasted sesame seeds or chopped scallions or crumbled dried seaweed or furikake.
Basically, think of anything that would be good on top of ramen, and see if you could add it to biscuit dough. Kimchi? Probably. Gochujang? Definitely. Pickled ginger? Maybe, maybe not. Chili crisp? YES. [Sidebar: Should we create a loaded ramen biscuit? I think so, yes.]
Here’s the basic recipe—have at it!
Note: I tried make the biscuits by simply mixing in the miso paste separately when I cut in the cold butter, but it’s hard to evenly incorporate. Even though it requires advance planning, I found the best approach is to make miso butter and use that in a basic biscuit recipe—so you just mix miso into softened butter ahead of time, then chill it, then use that. Details below!
Miso Butter Biscuits
Makes about 12 medium biscuits
1 tablespoon miso paste
6 tablespoons (85g) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups (240g) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup (170g) milk
1 cup add-ins, optional (see above for ideas)
1 egg white, beaten
A few hours, or a day before you want to bake, mix the miso paste into the softened butter until evenly incorporated. Return the miso butter to the fridge and chill until very cold and firm.
When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 425º F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Cut the cold miso butter into the dry ingredients using a fork or pastry cutter until the butter is in mostly pea-sized chunks—some chunks can be slightly larger and some smaller, but don't overwork it.
Stir in the add-ins, if using.
Add the milk, stir the dough with a fork until it is somewhat evenly moistened, then knead it a few times in the bowl so it mostly comes together in a ball but don't overwork it at all. It should not be cohesive and there should be chunks of drier areas and some wetter areas.
Turn the dough out onto the parchment-lined sheet, and fold it over onto itself until there aren't any dry spots remaining. Don't think of this as kneading: You want to handle it gently and as you fold, the wet/dry areas will disappear. Fold about 10 or 12 times, then gently press the dough down to a rectangle about 2 inches high.
Using a sharp knife, cut the dough into 2" squares and separate them slightly on the baking sheet. Brush with the beaten egg white. If you’ve used cheese or herbs or seeds in the dough, sprinkle some more on top!
Bake for about 12 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool slightly, then eat!