Recipe for Miso Soup

THIS RECIPE IS NOT GLUTEN-FREE - MISO IS MADE FROM BARLEY

The following ingredients can be bought at Amazon.com if you cannot find them at your local Asian Market. I included a link to the Wikipedia explanation of the ingredients and a picture.

Miso soup is the combination of Dashi (a broth) and Miso paste. Most Japanese today even in restaurants do not make homemade dashi from scratch. You can buy instant dashi granules, combine with water to make a broth (1 tsp hon dashi combined with one cup of boiling water) and add in the miso paste (in the process detailed below) and have semi-homemade miso soup. This way you can also adjust the dashi granules and miso paste until you find the combination you like best. Instant dashi has all the salt and msg already added that make the soup so good.

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Homemade Dashi
4 1/2 cups water
One 4-inch (10cm) square Konbu
1 TBS (.5 oz) Katsuobushi (bonito flakes)

Use a clean, damp cloth to wipe off white film on surface of kombu. In a sauce pan, combine water and kombu. Let soak for up to 2 hours, the place over high heat and bring to a simmer.

When stock begins to bubble slightly, after about 5 minutes, check center of kombu. If it is soft, remove kombu from saucepan and set aside. If it is hard, continue cooking for a few more minutes, then remove.

Let mixture come to a boil, then stir. Sim off any bubbles or scum on the surface.

Remove from heat and add a small amount of cold water to lower temperature before adding bonito flakes. (Boiling water makes them smell.)

Add bonito flakes to saucepan. Do not stir. Use chopsticks to press the flakes down gently to bottom of saucepan. Let rest for 3 minutes.

Lay a cheesecloth or clean napkin over a colander and strain mixture into a large bowl to remove bonito flakes. Remove the drained bonito flakes and reserve.

If, after tasting the finished dashi, you wish to strengthen its flavor, return mixture to saucepan and simmer for another 5 minutes.

Makes 4 1/2 cups number one dashi.

Traditionally you are supposed to take your used konbu and used bonito flakes and redo the entire process a second time to make number two dashi, a slightly diluted version of dashi is best for miso soup. Another tip is to use the number one dashi and a little less miso.

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Miso soup
4 cups Dashi
2 TBS (2 oz) miso paste

Bring dashi to a boil in a saucepan over medium heat.

Put miso paste into a strainer. Hold or place stainer over boiling dashi.

With back of a wooden spoon that fits well in strainer, rub miso so that you sieve it through strainer into boiling stock. Discard any grainy remainders in strainer.

Stir soup as it simmers gently. Check for taste. Remove from heat and serve.

Miso should be made to taste adding more bonito flakes or instant dashi granules to the stock will create a stronger flavor. Add almost any vegetable, meat or seafood to the soup, but be sparing with strongly flavored or particularly aromatic ingredients. The following are ideal: diced shallots, diced tofu, wakame seaweed, daikon radish, corn, scallops, clams, fish, finely sliced shiitake mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, okra, pork, bamboo shoots and asparagus. (not all together - pick and choose what you like.

If ingredients need cooking, cook them separately and then add to finished soup. Ingredients such as tofu, enoki mushrooms, shallots and seaweed do not need cooking; just place them in the serving bowls, pour the hot soup over and serve.

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Other interesting things I learned. Many people use Konbu that has already been used to make dashi a couple of times and stick it in the pot while making japanese sticky rice, for added flavor. If you are vegetarian, you can skip the bonito flakes and just add double konbu to make dashi broth. Dashi broth is used in thousands of Japanese recipes, the broth of Japan. If a recipe ever taste good but just not exactly right consider adding some dashi. (and msg, which makes everything better-did I tell you I bought a one pound bag of the white stuff).

I love, love, love miso soup. I have never made it but now that I did all this research I am excited to drive back to the Saigon Oriental Market and buy all these ingredients and do some trial and error. Not sure how to make it gluten-free.

Where's the Rice?

I was so excited when I got home from the Saigon Oriental Market. I had in my possesion so many lovely ingredients. Feeling a bit sad about the fact that Japan is so far away along with all of her delicious foods. I got out my Sushi cook book. I wanted to take the time to make the rice the traditional Japanese way. This is when I realized that with all the trouble I had taken to get just the right ingredients to make my food taste like I remembered it tasting...I had forgotten to buy rice. There was not a single grain of rice in my house. Back to the store.

I still have not found Sake, but otherwise the dinner turned out pretty good. I still miss Japan. Jeff, who had lunch at a Japanese restaurant last week said at least my meal tasted more like Japan than the one he had at the very expensive Japanese retaraurant. Oh well I guess you can never go back. My rice turned out perfect though. Here is the recipe in case you would like to eat Japanese sticky rice.

Be prepared to have a ton of rice that will last all week.

5 cups calrose rice
5 cups water
1 large pot
1/2 cup sake (optional)

put 5 cups rice in large pot. fill pot with water. run the rice through your fingers. pour out water (not rice). fill pot with water again. run fingers gently through the rice. pour out water (not rice). One last time, fill pot with water, run fingers through rice, dump water (not rice). (this process is called rinsing the rice) Some books say that at this point you should put the rice in a strainer and drain the water for at least a 1/2 an hour. I do not do this step because my dear friend and the world's best Japanese cook Ritsuko doesn't do this...

Now add 5 cups water to the rice in the very large pot. Cover the pot and put on the stove over medium heat. Do not remove lid at any point from now until the end. Heat until the water begins to boil. (usually takes 10 to 15 minutes)

Once the water has started to bubble (I use a clear lid) turn up the heat to high for 3 minutes. If your pot is not big enough it will start to boil over at this point and you may have to reduce the heat a bit sooner.

Now reduce heat and boil for 5 minutes over medium heat.

Now reduce the heat again and boil for 5 more minutes over the lowest possible heat.

Now remove the lid, add the sake, give it a good stir with a wooden spoon. Remove from heat. Return lid to pot. Let finish cooking for 15 minutes. Now your Rice is ready to eat.

Great for kids. Lily always eats several bowls full. The Japanese eat the rice plain. They eat their food separate from their rice instead of mixed together. Just a bowl of rice to accompany almost every meal.

In China they also eat the rice separate and do not pour their meat and veggies with the delicious sauces over the rice. In China they do not eat rice until the end of the meal. They had a specific order in which food is eaten. All I can remember is that the rice came last. Because this was the only thing Lily could eat, she was terribly hungry and they would absolutely refuse to bring us rice until everyone was done with their meal. So frustrating. Luckily I had a $2 Gucci purse filled with bananas.