I remember back to when we were in Boston and one of our fellow cooks used to expound about the true pleasures of noodles in a miso broth enriched with butter and hot chilies. His unwavering belief that miso, butter, chilies, and noodles should be constantly united has stayed with me over the years. We have braised marble potatoes in a miso-butter broth. Similarly, miso mashed potatoes are delicious. We have used miso-chili butter to baste giant scallops as we pan roast them and also have married the miso-butter with Banyuls vinegar for a pan sauce for shrimp ravioli.
I was struck by the miso-butter bug again. In this case, we added miso, white asparagus, cayenne, and water to the pressure cooker and cooked it together for two minutes. The result was overcooked, extremely tender, and delicious butter and miso-drenched asparagus. After a few minutes in the blender, I was eating my incredibly delicious inspiration. Why had we not made white miso and white asparagus soup before? It was unbelievable. To complement the soup, we made a remoulade of white asparagus batons, spiked with cornichons and tarragon. Once again, we used vacuum compression to infuse the asparagus with the marinade and still keep the asparagus crisp and juicy. The final element to the dish is an onsen egg, which we like cooking for an hour and a half at 65 degrees Celsius.
What is exciting for me is the harmony in this dish. We have sultry decadence paired with bracing crispness topped with unctuous richness. I could, and most likely will, be eating a fair amount of this soup. And as a side note, if white asparagus is not on hand, I believe butternut squash, apples, onions, turnips, and gold beets would work equally well in its place, in both the soup and the remoulade. I would just make sure not to skimp on the butter, miso, and cayenne.
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