Miso soup is a staple of the Japanese table eaten with meals from breakfast to dinner. Depending on the region of Japan you're in, you might find yourself starring down at a steaming bowl of white miso soup with okra and taro, or a heady bowl of dark miso soup with deep fried tofu, bamboo and wild mushrooms. Growing up in California, I always looked forward to Saturday morning breakfasts because it meant my mom was making Japanese food for the two of us and western food for my sister and step-father.

As I mentioned in my last post, the dashi (stock) that you use to make miso soup is what makes or breaks the soup. There's a recipe below for the dashi, or you can opt to use one of the 2 kinds of instant dashi

I vary the ingredients based on what I have in my fridge, but you can put just about any veggie into this soup from carrots, to potatoes, to cabbage to bean sprouts.

This recipe first appeared on norecipes.com but due to its age I've moved it here to my personal recipe archive. Check out the full No Recipes Archives for more older recipes, or check out some of my favorite recipes.

Red Miso Soup

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Ingredients

For Dashi

2 cups water
10 niboshi (dried baby sardines) heads removed
1 small piece dashi konbu (1x3-inches)

For Soup

1 tablespoon red miso (to taste)
1 handful nameko mushrooms (or enoki)
1 piece aburaage (deep fried tofu) cut into small squares
1 scallion (thinly sliced)
mitsuba (optional for garnish)

Instructions

For the dashi, simmer the ingredients over low heat for 10-15 minutes. If you have a teaball, or disposable tea bags, I like putting the niboshi in one so they're easier to retrieve when the stock is done. Make sure it does not boil as this could make the soup cloudy or bitter. Taste it... it should be deep, slightly smoky and full of umami. Now just fetch all the floaties and your done with the dashi (you might need to run it through a strainer)
To make the soup, dissolve the miso in the dashi, making sure there are no lumps of miso left. Taste, and add more miso if needed. Make sure it does not boil as this will make the miso separate.
Add the aburaage and mushrooms and cook for a few minutes. Sprinkle the scallions in at the very end, just before you serve the soup.
Once it's in the bowls you can add some Mitsuba. It's a bit hard to find (you'll have to go to a japanese grocery store), and there isn't really a suitable replacement, but it adds a wonderful cedar aroma to the soup that carries you away to a misty evergreen forest.

Notes

Cuisine Japanese