Miso Sauce

When I lived in Japan my favorite food was Katsu. Katsu likely is Japanese shorthand for cutlet (Katsu-retto). What makes the dish extraordinary is the sauce. It is a mixture of Japanese and European -- the Japanese word for this cuisine is YoShoku (Yoo means Western and Shoku means food).

The sauce is like molasses or barbecue sauce but it also has Japanese flavors

Recently I came across a recipe for miso katsu sauce that I have been simplifying and adapting. First, no alcohol, so I substitute simple syrup. Then no gluten, so I use gluten-free red miso paste. We have this simple recipe:

1.  Boil 1/4 cup of water -- it boils quickly.
2. Start adding white sugar, 1/2 tbsp or 1 tbsp at a time, until the water is syrupy.
3. Turn off the heat, and start adding red miso paste 1 tbsp at a time until it is thick.

This simple recipe was excellent, but I have experimented by:

• Adding ginger to the water before it boils. This is excellent.

Planned experiments include:

1. Adding flaky dried shiitake mushrooms
2. Doing a traditional katsu sauce and adding tomato paste, vinegar, fruit (I like pears), tamari soy sauce (which is gluten-free) and possibly seaweed of some sort and possibly chili peppers of some sort as well as black pepper. I will update this once I have a better recipe.