October 19 – October 25, 2026

Monday:                  Chicken and White Bean Stew, Caprese Salad

Tuesday:                  Butternut Rigatoni with Sausage and Dates

Caprese Salad

Thursday:                Dunnings Dinner

Friday:                      Mussels in Miso Broth

Saturday:                Pizza w/ Olives, basil, pepper flakes, mozz. and anchovies

Sunday:                   Grilled Delmonico Steak, Roasted Potatoes, Salad

Miso Is Our Friend

The first time I saw Miso soup – in a small Styrofoam cup, taking up space that should, I thought, be filled with sushi, it annoyed me.  But then I tasted it and became an instant fan.  A pleasantly rich, slightly salty, earthy broth with little strands of spinach and small cubes of tofu is not objectionable I thought.  After a few more spoonfuls, I was wishing there was more soup and less sushi.  Miso is a natural, not an acquired taste.  And, because it comes in paste form you can dissolve it into soups, coat proteins with it, roast vegetables in it . . .  Rebecca Firkser, of bon appétit had the obvious, but apparently original idea to use miso broth as a base for a bowlful of mussels.  At Casa Stuarti, this dish was a home run, and, fittingly enough, we ate it while watching the World Series. 

We fiddled with the recipe a bit by eliminating the sliced garlic and cooking some rice in the miso broth before adding the mussels, and then spooning some of the rice, along with the mussels and broth into everyone’s bowl.  This gave a little more heft and a nice texture to the dinner.  Add some crusty bread to sop up the miso/mussel liquid and you have a great bistro dinner, enjoyable in the comfort of your own home, while watching the Milwaukee Brewers play their magnificent brand of baseball.  There are better experiences in life, but they are few – and some can’t be shared in a family blog.

I will now address the elephant in the room – Miso-aversion and Mussel-aversion.

Aversion to Miso.  As mentioned above, you only need to taste miso soup to become a miso fan.  But the invasion of soy-based foods, and the relentless larding of the NYT “What to Cook This Week” (in the Saturday Arts section along with the Crossword) with tofu and cold noodle and other alien recipes, can raise your hackles so high that you ignore your taste buds.  But do not tar Miso with the twee brush of the NYT sensibility.  Miso is a dietary staple for hundreds of millions of hard-working peasants and what the Japanese call ‘salary men,’ who have never read the New Your Times. 

Miso is a paste made by fermenting soy beans with salt briefly (white miso) or deeply (red miso) or somewhere in between (yellow miso).  It is slightly salty, deeply savory, very satisfying in a warm broth and adds protein to what would, otherwise, be pretty thin soup.

Aversion to mussels.  Yes, I know that some people are allergic to shell-fish and they have my sympathy.  But I’m talking (writing) to the rest of you.  Surely, you know that much of the best eating on earth involves shell-fish – shrimp, crab, scallops, lobster, clams and mussels.  Mussels offer a unique mix of meatiness and flavor (whatever broth they are cooked in) that you cannot achieve with any other shellfish or animal protein.*There are entire restaurants built around cooking mussels.  You should, at the least, give these restaurants a try.  (In Pittsburgh, go to Point Bruges – they also have a great craft beer selection.)  And, finally, mussels are cheap, unlike shrimp or lobster or crab or scallops.

*You can come close with cooked oysters, but there’s a sort of flatness to the oysters, while cooked mussels retain a freshness that I can’t quite put into words.

Okay – so we’re over the xenophobia and the difficult-to-pronounce ostracon-phobia (look it up) and it’s time to cook

Mussels with Miso Broth

(adapted from bon appétit)

Timing:    However long it takes you to scrub and debeard the

     mussels plus 15 minutes

Ingredients:                                      Serves 4

3 – 3 ½ lb. mussels, scrubbed, debearded

8 scallions, thinly sliced on a diagonal, divided (you can substitute shallots)

8 garlic cloves, thinly sliced (we substituted ½ tsp. garlic powder, which we added with the miso and red pepper flakes – see below)

2 Tbsp. white miso paste

½ tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

6 Tbsp. butter

1 cup sake or dry white wine

1 lemon, halved

Kosher salt

Crusty bread for serving

Prep:

Scrub and debeard the mussels under cold running water

Slice the scallions and set aside two Tbsp. for serving

Gather the other ingredients.

Cook:

Melt the butter in a large pot over medium.  Add scallions and garlic slices, if using, and cook, stirring often, for about 4 minutes – until softened.  Add the miso and red pepper flakes and garlic power, if using, and cook until miso is broken up and incorporated into the butter – no more than 1 minute.

Now pour in the wine and stir to combine and, if you’re using rice, toss in the rice and cook as you would normally cook rice, then add the mussels, cover the pot, increase the heat to medium-high and cook, shaking the pot from time to time until mussels open – 5 – 7 minutes.    If you’re not using the rice, add the mussels after you’ve stirred in the wine, raise the heat to medium-high and cook, shaking the pot from time to time, until the mussels open.  (Turn off the heat when the mussels have opened – don’t cook any more, or you’ll end up with tough mussels – edible, but not great.)

Squeeze a half lemon over the mussels and cut the remaining lemon into wedges for serving.

Taste the broth and season with salt.

Ladle the mussels into shallow bowls (along with some of the rice, if using) and scatter reserved scallions over them and serve with crusty bread.