Fish Miso Soup (Burijiru)

Hearty miso-based soups like Tonjiru and Torijiru are wintertime staples in Japan, but they can also be made using fish. This Burijiru is a fish miso soup made with Buri or Japanese Amberjack (a.k.a. Yellowtail). This fish is often sold as Hamachi in the US, but it's a misnomer because Hamachi describes an earlier stage of this fish's development cycle, and what's typically sold in the US is fully matured Buri. 

If you can't find it, this miso soup recipe will work with any firm fish with a lot of fat and connective tissue, such as salmon, cod, or monkfish. Ideally, you also want a mix of bony areas and meat because it will give you a more flavorful stock. I like using the collar (Kama) for this, but you can also use the head and backbone along with pieces of the filets. 

There are two critical factors to prevent fishiness in cooked fish, and they both involve minimizing the compound trimethylamine oxide, which is found in the blood and tissues of all marine animals. When bacteria and enzymes break it down into trimethylamine, it results in a fishy odor. Because there is a high concentration of trimethylamine oxide in fish's blood, it is super important to use the freshest fish you can find and remove as much blood from it as possible. 

As for the vegetables, I used about 400 grams of a mixture of root veggies and mushrooms, but this is flexible, and you can use whatever you have on hand.