Miso soup

I’ve known miso for around twenty years. I got it in the health food store, which has a good japanese section. It is a thick paste, available from yellowish through mid reddish brown to deep dark brown, generally made from fermenting soybeans – sometimes other grains are added, like rice and barley. It has different tastes, from an earthy sweetness for the light ones to a deep saltiness for the darker ones. Miso can be used for marinades, sauces and soups. I use it for soup most of the time.

2015-11-29-17.18.06

A true miso soup has dashi as a broth. I do sometimes use a vegetable or chicken stock cube as a starting point. You may even use water.

The dashi is made in around 5 minutes. You do need kombu, a sort of seaweed and bonito flakes, shavings of a type of tuna. You start with putting the kombu into cold water and heating it up until it boiles. After a couple of minutes you can take out the kombu and leave it for another time. I will most likely use for around four times. Then you add a tablespoon of the bonito flakes and let it simmer for a couple of minutes. After that you drain the broth. The dashi is ready.

2015-11-29-17.16.26

The filling can be basically anything you have in the house. For this evening i chose the following:

  • 2-3 cm of fresh ginger, grated
  • two cloves of garlic, chopped
  • a bit of freshly sliced red pepper
  • 4 cm of large carrot, in 1 mm thick slices
  • the remaining bits of bok choy
  • tofu, sliced in medium blocks
  • some noodles

2015-11-29-17.23.47

The miso i mixed with a couple of tablespoons of the broth. It’s best not to cook the miso. It seems natural miso has many microorganisms which can be killed by overcooking.

2015-11-29-17.30.13

2015-11-29-17.36.16

When the carrot is cooked through, add the broth with all the veggies, tofu and noodles to the miso.

A half slice of nori i found in the cupboard was cut up in small pieces and thrown on top. A spring onion sliced was added as well. I finished with spreading some chili sauce on top.

This recipe is for an evening meal. There are many other options. A good place to start reading for more information about miso soup is the following article: Understand the Flavor Framework of Miso Soup.

Enjoy!

Published on November 30, 2015 at 6:00 by

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.