Quarantine Drinks (and Food!) V.17: Red Miso Caramel Latte

Hello strangers, 

Well, we all thought the quarantine was supposed to end, so we stopped our little video and drink series. I also had a baby so obviously that's eating up a few minutes of my days. 

But it looks like we're in for a bit more quarantine time and Delicious Little Tokyowent virtual this year, so as part of that, we decided to do one more of these quarantine drinks! And we thought we should use this platform to also show some love for another local business, so here go! 

Why miso in your caramel? Well, if you like salted caramel, this is just better. Miso packs an umami punch that salt is lacking, so it gives your caramel a bit more flavor beyond just the salt you'd normally get. A lot of recipes call for a mellow white miso, but we opted for something with a little more fire. We reached out to our favorite local miso maker, Omiso, and got some miso that has been fermenting for 2 years! This rich, red miso was a bit stronger and saltier than the white miso, and we adjusted our recipe to reflect that. Also this might be the best miso I've ever tried, so I would definitely jump on that while you can. Ai is a wizard with this stuff. 

Ok, onto the recipe:

Take 170g of demerara sugar (regular sugar works too, but you know we love the dark sugars for that extra flavor) and add 50g of hot water to it and put it all in a saucepan and start cooking. You want to cook it on medium heat until the sugar is more or less dissolved, browning and you see some wisps of vapor leaving the pot. 

Take it off the heat and add 1/2 cup of heavy cream and mix it in. Add another 24g of the red miso (use more if you're using white miso) and really mix it all aggressively. If it starts to harden on you, put it back on the heat. 

And that's pretty much it. To make an iced caramel miso latte at home, use your Aeropress to make an "espresso" (see previous posts) and then add 2oz of the caramel sauce to it. Whisk aggressively and then add in the milk. I like to throw everything in a shaker with some ice before I pour it into a glass. 

To give it that Starbucks vibe, I'd put some in a squeeze jar and squeeze it over the top in a criss-cross pattern.

Enjoy!