As promised, I was going to write a follow-up post to my Spicy Tuna Hand Roll recipe with a recipe for miso soup. After traveling a bit around the United States, I found that a lot of Japanese restaurants put “weird” things into their miso soup. It isn’t wrong per say, but it is extremely Americanized, and it just ruins the simplicity of miso soup. Some examples would be the addition of onion chunks, carrots, and sometimes even cabbage! Gasp – the horror!
So, in rebellion to all the miso soups I’ve hated at those particular Japanese restaurants, this recipe is more true to the miso soups I’ve had in California as well as in Japan.
Dashi, Fish Stock Base |
Miso Soup
3 cups of water
1 teaspoon of dashi
1 tablespoon of miso ( Shiromiso, “white miso”)
1 sliver of silken soft tofu
1 green onion, thinly sliced
a few pieces of dried seaweed, wakame
Boil the 3 cups of water in a medium saucepan, before the water comes to a roaring boil, reduce heat to medium and add the 1 teaspoon of dashi and 1 tablespoon of miso. Don’t ask me why, but I have been told before not to but miso into rapidly boiling water, so to this day I just let my soup stock heat up slowly. Also, since it’s only 3 cups of water, the water will evaporate, so turn the heat to low once you dissolve the dashi and miso.
Dice up your silken soft tofu into small tiny cubes and put them in the bottom of your bowl. Add a few pieces of the dried seaweed. While tiny looking, the wakame will expand, so be cafeful how much you use. Pour in some of the soup, garnish with the green onions and serve!
Alternate Methods
While the recipe above is extremely easy, there are other known ways to create the broth. For example, when I asked a Japanese lady how she makes her miso soups, she noted that she uses kelp and dried sardines to achieve what the dashi does for me. For you hardcore kids who loves to cook from scratch, you may prefer this method.
[…] also made some Miso Soup to go along with these hand rolls, so I shall be posting up a simple & easy recipe for that […]