Many thanks again to all who responded to my questions about veggie broth
and miso. The following are summaries of the responses either posted to the
list or sent directly by Email.
SUMMARY RE VEGGIE BROTH
Q: I know tastes vary, but have you found a vegetable broth (liquid,
powder, or paste) that you particularly like?
Barth's Nutra-Soup (vegetable flavor)
Frontier vegetable broth powder
Seitenbacher vegetable broth powder
Morga (but peanut oil in it)
Dixie's veggie broth powder
Williams Sonoma?s vegetable broth
Swanson has a brand that is ok, but it is always available at my local
"normal" grocery. My local health food store has a wonderful powdered
fake-chicken broth that I like a lot, but I buy it bulk, so I don't really
have a brand name
SUMMARY RE MISO:
Q: Does anyone have favorite varieties or brands (of miso) to use for
soup? for salad dressings? for seasoning steamed vegetables?
Natto miso contains barley, soybeans, seaweed and ginger . . . Usually I
use natto, mellow white or barley miso in soup. I tend to like the ones
with lighter flavor. The Mugi and Hatcha are too strong for me. Miso Master
also makes a chickpea miso that's pretty good.
I much prefer the red, or barley miso over the white, which has a more
fermented taste to me. From what I can tell, the red miso is what is
usually used in miso soups found in most Japanese restaurants.
I have only bought miso twice. It lasts a very long time. Both times I got
Miso Master made by the American Miso Company. The first time I got barley
miso. Now I have brown rice miso. They taste different, but I don't know
if I would call one or the other better. Just different.
I use quite a bit of miso, and I think that the Miso Master brand is the
best. I'd go with a medium color, like barley miso or red miso. The darker
ones are more like heavy soy sauce, kind of overpowering. The lighter ones
are sweeter and more subtle, and you tend to use more which can get
expensive... Actually my favorite is the chickpea miso -- it has the most
interesting flavor. I always have a tub of that one in my fridge, then one
other kind, usuallly red or barley, though sometimes a lighter or darker
kind.
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