Look in your fridge and pantry. Consider how your spices, herbs, and sauces have changed from a decade ago. For me, the presence of Asian ingredients is a stand-out. One of those ingredients is Miso paste. It can be found at most mainstream supermarkets here (Toronto) and surely at the many Asian markets in the city.

Miso is a fermented soy bean paste and I’ve used it in a few dishes. It keeps for awhile in your fridge. It’s one of the ingredients for this pasta dish. I first read about this dish in the New York Times.

Over in Japan, a genre of cooking called “wafu” (meaning Japanese style) has made its way to the west. Quite often they are Italian dishes cooked with a Japanese approach or combining Asian and Italian ingredients. Think Udon Carbonara, Wafu Italian Meatballs, Cacio & Pepi Gyoza.

You need to boil some pasta for this dish. Save some pasta water after boiling. Add the remaining ingredients to the cooked pasta and stir until combined. A fantastic, delicious and quick meal ideal for a weeknight meal.

Gather your scallions or chives, miso paste, butter, and cream. Add a garnish of thinly sliced nori. In my instance, I used furikake because that’s what I had in my cupboard. Let’s cook!

Creamy Miso Spaghetti

Recipe by Peter MinakiCourse: MainCuisine: Wafu ItalianDifficulty: Easy

Servings

4

servings

Prep time

5

minutes

Cooking time

10

minutes

Ingredients

• Kosher or sea salt and fresh ground pepper

• 240 gr. spaghetti

• 6 Tbsp. unsalted butter

• 3 Tbsp. miso paste (white or red)

• 1/3 cup heavy cream

• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

• 1/3 cup thinly sliced scallions or chives

• furikake or thinly sliced nori sheets

Directions

• Place a pot of water on your stovetop over high heat. Add salt, pasta and cook for 5 minutes.
• Reserve 1 1/2 cups of pasta water and drain the rest. Return boiled pasta back into the pot and add the butter, miso, 1 cup pasta water. Stir for a couple of minutes.
• Add the cream, scallions and stir in. If more pasta water is needed, add some here.
• Take off the heat, add grated cheese, ground pepper and quickly toss to combine.
• Divide and plate, garnish with furikake or thinly sliced nori.