Photo: Nandemo (Whatever) miso soup. Tonight there was a potato, a yellow onion, a piece of daikon, some curly kale, and two kinds of miso. Yes, I splashed in a little sake.
Oh food bloggers bring us the perfect recipe for miso soup.
Here we have a step-by-step guide to “classic” miso soup from Trevor Corson at Serious Eats.
How about theme and variation from Makiko Itoh at Just Hungry?
And the motherlode: 66 ways to make miso soup from Harris Salat at the Japanese Food Report.
Miso soup at my house is catch–as–catch–can. Making dashi (broth) is fast and delicious and completely doable even on a work night. I can have fresh dashi made in less than 15 minutes. It’s best if you let the kombu soak in cold water for a while before heating it, but in a rush you can still make a good, quick dashi from scratch. I know you’ll ignore me and use the powder packet, so I’ll shut up now on the joys of homemade dashi.
Besides the dashi, the rest of miso soup consists of using whatever ingredients you have, lightly cooking them in the dashi (usually—I’d blanch fried tofu and meats first), and adding the final addition of whatever mixture of miso you like. You can get really finicky with the blanching, and in some cases it’s worth roasting the vegetables or stir-frying the ingredients ahead, but this is nandemo miso soup, no need to prep for a Saveur photo shoot.
The nandemo part—knowing what you like and what works—takes a little tasting and experimenting, but it’s miso mixing, not nuclear fission. You know not to plop a spoonful of miso in the pot, right? It won’t dissolve, whisk it in some hot dashi first.
Woe unto he who boils the miso! (It really does deaden the flavor.)
So, after your first few goes at it, don’t stare at your laptop screen and measure out exact amounts of tofu and wakame, which you probably don’t have anyway: Get in the fridge, haul out the vegetables, and see what you have.
Tonight I had daikon, a potato, some kale, an onion. I made dashi, simmered the vegetables in it, and added a mix of two misos, hatchō, the super dark, and aka, a standard red. I steamed some leftover rice, added takuan pickles on the side, and Carlos said the house smelled like a Japanese restaurant. He’s so kawaii.
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February 2, 2010 at 8:31 pm
Midwest Girl Living in Southern California
First let me start with: You are so fucking awesome. I can’t believe you aren’t a professional writer.
That said, I was raised on Sunday roasts, chicken and dumplings, liver and onions, scalloped potatoes and ham . . . you get the picture. So where in San Diego should this ignorant-of-Japanese-food girl get a real sampling and what should she order?
Miss you!
XOXO
February 2, 2010 at 10:42 pm
Madam
Glad to see someone read the “Contact Madam” page.
Japanese: Ah, there was a place downtown in the Gaslamp where I used to go for lunch…oh eight years ago! So, I can’t vouch for the current state of the place: Kiyo’s, really great chef-owner who would tell me about his yearly trips back to Japan to keep up with sushi culture and to train. Not a place for a super quick bargain lunch, and the Yelp reviews are confirming that, I see. But it was good back then. Other than that I don’t remember any places that weren’t trendy and silly. I’m a progressive in most aspects of life, but not about sushi and classic Japanese dishes.
Better yet, go shopping at Mitsuwa and check out the groceries and have some ramen. I think they have another food counter, for other Japanese dishes. One candidate for the Japanese equivalent of stick-to-your-ribs Midwestern food could be katsudon (fried pork cutlet on rice). See ChubbyHubby.net for pretty solid looking katsudon recipe. Don’t give me that look, if you can fry up a pork cutlet (and I know you can), you can make this!
We miss you guys!