Miso for what ails you (recipe)

Home sick yesterday.  With sick one and two-year-olds weeping on my shoulder every day (ah, the beginning of a new school year), I can only avoid an early autumn cold for so long.  Though I suppose this will only be an early autumn cold by Friday.  Until then, it’s a late summer cold!

 

Whenever I get sick, the only food apart from my dad’s homemade chicken soup that can really make me feel sustained is Japanese food – soups and okayu (savory rice porridge).  I thought that since as long as I was home, and making myself some lunch, I might as well post a tutorial to what I believe to be two of the cornerstones of traditional Japanese cooking: dashi soup stock and miso soup.

 

There are a great many wonderful miso and dashi tutorials out there already, but everyone has their own, and this is mine!  Nothing is more fulfilling than a bowl of hot miso soup prepared at home with fresh ingredients and good miso.  It was the first Japanese meal I ever learned to cook for myself and I’ve been making it year after year ever since.

 

The essential element to any miso, apart from the quality of the miso paste itself, is a good soup stock.  Japanese soup stock can be made from any number of ingredients but my personal favorite is a konbu and bonito dashi, made from presoaked seaweed and boiled fish flakes.  Konbu is a marvelous Japanese ingredient – long, thick ribbons of seaweed that are sustainable harvested (they just sheer off the tops, like a lawn) and dried.  Many grocery stores carry konbu now in the asian food section, and it’s delightfully inexpensive.  I use my kitchen scissors to cut it down to the size I need and reserve the rest in a drawer, keeping it for months at a time.

Konbu often has a sort of chalky residue when you remove it from the package, but don’t be alarmed.  This is a mineral deposit from sea water, a result of the drying process.  Some people say you should rinse it off, others say it adds to the taste.  I’ve done both and I suppose my taste just isn’t refined enough to to tell the difference!  If it grosses you out, just brush it off, or quickly run the dry konbu piece under the tap to rinse it, then drop it in a pan, like so.

As I’m only making a few cups of stock, a piece this size will do (size).  Depending on how strong you want your stock to be, you can use a much larger piece and let it soak for many hours, even overnight sitting on the stove (I recommend covering the pot if you own a cat who, like mine does, enjoys splashing in any available water).  A standard soaking time is about twenty minutes, so I will pour three cups of water over the konbu, set the timer for twenty minutes, and move on to preparing the rest of my ingredients with plenty of time.

 

~ If you are a vegan or vegetarian and don’t wish to add any fish flakes to your dashi, konbu dashi is very good on its own.  You can also add dried shiitake mushrooms and allow them to sit along with the konbu, or just make a mushroom broth on its own (same method).  ~

For my miso today, I’m using some vegetables I happen to have around the house: carrots, daikon radish, acorn squash, and nappa cabbage.  The carrots are julienned, the nappa leaf washed and sliced at an angle.  This helps it absorb the flavor of the broth better.  Daikon is a wonderful and traditional flavoring agent for miso, but it is strong, so make sure you like it before you put it in!  The skin of the daikon is tough so I recommend peeling it first to get closer to the core, the sweetest part.  Slice into very thin quarter rounds, or julienne.  Peel and chop the squash into small rolling wedges.  Any veggies can be used in miso, but this is a particularly autumnal bunch – a very traditional basic combo would just be some wakame (dried seaweed), tofu and green onions.  Use what you have (and I admit that not everybody has a daikon sitting in their fridge . . . probably).

I’m also adding some tofu for protein.  This tofu has been rinsed and cubed.  Another traditional method of preparation is just to break it apart with your fingers into bite-sized chunks.

 

Now all my ingredients are ready, so it’s time to finish the dashi preparation.

 

Bring the konbu to a boil, keeping an eye on it.  Right as it reaches a boil, add a generous handful of bonito flakes to the broth and turn off the stove.  Bonito flakes are made from the bonito fish, which is smoked until leathery, then preserved and shaved thinly; it will also last for months in a drawer.  I allow my bonito to sit in the broth for about thirty seconds more, stirring with chopsticks if they seem to be gumming up on top of the konbu (the konbu can also be removed ahead of time, just before the bonito are added, but it’s up to you).

 

The moment the bonito settle in, your kitchen will be filled with a wonderful roasty fish aroma.  Yum!

Next, it’s time to strain the broth.  This can be done through a sheer kitchen towel, but I am using a paper towel here, which I will throw into my compost bucket along with the remains of the bonito and konbu.  Settle the paper towel or cloth into a mesh strainer and, over a bowl, strain all the broth.  Make sure it drains completely, wrap the leftovers up, and toss them!  As with many economical Japanese recipes, these leftovers can be saved and used again.  You can use them together a second time for a much milder dashi, or you can save just the konbu.  Boil it a little longer, slice it thinly, and it will be soft enough to eat!  Toss it with some rice and veggies.

 

 

Success!  You’re left with a beautiful, clear dashi, still steaming hot.  Dashi can be stored in a jar in the fridge for up to three days, or frozen for later use, but it’s best fresh.  If you’re making your miso right away, toss the broth right back into the pot (make sure it’s free of any debris from cooking the stock) and toss your vegetables in.

Simmer the veggies until they are tender, allowing them to soak up the flavor of your dashi.

 

Now comes the part I always used to mess up when I was younger: adding the miso paste.  Miso, like yogurt, has active live cultures that are very good for you, but if you add the miso to boiling water, they will be killed, as well as turning the miso grainy, yuck.  Make sure that your broth is not boiling when you add the miso.  To be extra safe, I usually  just turn the stove off completely.  I am using a white miso paste (shiro miso) because white miso is typically eaten in the warmer months, while red (aka miso) is more commonly eaten in winter.  Still, there are many more types of miso than just red and white, and I am far from being an expert in them!  Let’s just say I like white miso.  Make sure to get a non-GMO, no MSG miso – always check the ingredients.  It may cost a dollar more (and it may not) but you get what you pay for, and miso can keep for months and months, so invest!

 

Scoop out however much you want with a scoop that is larger than the amount you’d like to use.  The reason for this is that miso is very thick, and must be mixed gradually into the broth to make sure it’s all incorporated.  I like my miso soup to be of medium strength, not too salty and not too watery, so for three cups of water, I will use about an 1/8 of a cup, scooped out here in my 1/4 cup measure.  A full 1/4 cup of miso for a recipe of this size is probably more standard.

Dip the scoop into the dashi, fill it with broth, and use your chopsticks to slowly stir.  As you stir, the miso will begin to turn to a smooth paste and you can continue to dip the scoop as you stir, pouring off the mixed miso until all the clumps are broken up.

Last but not least, add the tofu.  I like to do this step last so the tofu is barely warmed through, but you can also add it with the veggies.

Pour into bowls and enjoy.  Beautiful miso soup, rich and savory.  Japanese cooks like to incorporate different colors into their foods (all five colors, you will often hear them say) and I’ve been told that something green in miso is a must – for beauty as well as for nutrition.  The orange carrot and the white daikon also give it a lovely look, the good-luck colors of New Year namasu pickles.  Pair this soup with a bowl of plain Japanese white rice and you’re eating what my English language students in Japan ate for breakfast every single morning (they used to tell me in English: I have a rice and miso soup).

I hope this tutorial is helpful to someone, or at least inspires them to make their own favorite miso recipe.  Stay warm and healthy!

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