I love hearing the miso in recipes it seems so exotic and such a foodie word to say, my parents get excited when they hear me saying we are having a miso dish.

Then they ask me to remind them again what miso is and when they remember that its fermented mushrooms that have been fermenting for longer than 6 months, they don’t seem to want to taste the dish anymore.

I recently managed to get my hands on the book “ My Vegetarian braai,” Super excited and although we don’t own a braai stand and our skottle braai has last been used before the 2000, I was still excited to try out these recipes.

There is always a way of getting around without a braai stand, you just need a stove top grill plate and hey presto you have an indoor braai. Meat lovers and braai masters will not agree with me, but that’s just my opinion and it works well for me.

Woolworths had that combo sale before lockdown and my dad went a tad bit mad and bough me 3 kg of butternut, which isn’t a lot its actually only 4 butternut, but still. We are not butternut lovers. Anyway this butternut is just hanging in the pantry and lately it seems to be getting in my way and knocking me everytime I walk past to get something and I am always moving it around in the panty, it always somehow seems to be in front of the rack I need to use.

While paging through my new recipe book, I came across a recipe that would these annoying butternut to good use and guess what it also contained my favourite fermented ingredient, MISO PASTE.

The recipe itself is super easy to make, with nothing more than a basting mixture and sticking it into the oven to bake till soft which takes under two hours, depending on how big or small your butternut is.

The verdict, we as a family for the first time we were all agreement that we loved this recipe, the butternut was soft and the basting was delicious and as they kept telling me they could not taste mushroom mold in their mouth. Parents I tell  you.

Ingredients:

• 2 x large butternuts, halved and the seeds removed.
• 2 x tsp ginger garlic paste.
• 4 x tbsp. miso paste.
• 2 x tbsp. honey.
• ¼ x cup olive oil.
• 2 x tbsp. sesame oil.
• 1 x tsp dried chilli flakes.
• Seasame seeds and chopped coriander to garnish.

Method:

• In a bowl, whisk together the ginger garlic paste, miso paste, honey, olive oil, sesame oil and chilli flakes together.
• Place each butternut half on a piece of foil and brush liberally with the miso mixture.
• Wrap up each butternut with the foil and pop into a preheated oven.
• Bake at 180 degrees for 2 hours or until the butternut is cooked through.
• Remove from the oven and remove from the foil.
• Garnish with sesame seeds and chopped coriander before serving.