Miso and Mushroom Vegan Gravy

Miso is fermented, which means it arrives loaded with the savoury compounds you normally have to build over hours with bones. Paired with browned mushrooms it does the job of a proper meat stock in about half an hour. Keep it off the boil once the miso is in, or you cook away the very thing you added it for.

Ingredients

Makes about 500ml, four to five servings

• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 250g (9oz) chestnut mushrooms, finely chopped
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tbsp grated fresh ginger optional but good
• 2 tbsp (30g) plain flour
• 600ml (1 pint) hot vegetable stock
• 2 tbsp brown rice miso paste barley miso contains gluten, rice miso usually does not
• 1 tsp rice vinegar or cider vinegar
• black pepper

Kit

• Wide saucepan
• Whisk
• Small bowl

Method

1. Heat the oil in a wide pan over a high heat and add the chopped mushrooms with a pinch of salt. Cook for eight to ten minutes without touching them much, until the water has gone and they are dark, shrunken and starting to stick.

2. Turn the heat down to medium, add the onion and cook for six minutes until soft and going golden at the edges, scraping up anything stuck to the base as you go.

3. Add the garlic and ginger and cook for one minute more, just long enough for the smell to change from raw to sweet.

4. Stir in the flour and let it cook for two minutes, coating the mushrooms. It will look dry and clumpy, which is exactly right.

5. Add the hot stock a third at a time, whisking hard between each addition, and bring it to a gentle simmer. Cook for eight minutes until it thickens and turns glossy.

6. Take the pan off the heat and let it stop bubbling. Put the miso in a small bowl, whisk in two tablespoons of the hot gravy to loosen it into a smooth cream, then stir that back into the pan.

7. Add the vinegar and a good grind of black pepper. Taste before you reach for salt, because miso brings plenty of its own. Serve straight away while it is hot but not boiling.

Tips worth knowing

• Never boil gravy after the miso goes in. Boiling flattens the flavour and can make it taste oddly sour.
• Loosening the miso in a little hot liquid first stops it sitting in salty lumps at the bottom of the pan.
• White miso is milder and sweeter, red miso is stronger and saltier. Start with two tablespoons of whichever you have and taste before adding more.
• Chopping the mushrooms small rather than slicing them gives more surface area to brown and a gravy with better body.

Keeping and reheating

Three or four days in the fridge. It freezes acceptably but the miso loses a little of its edge, so consider freezing it before the miso goes in and adding it fresh on reheating.

Questions people ask