How to make miso soup

I’ll be talking some more about the ingredients of miso soup because they form a basis for a lot of shojin ryori cuisine. However, I’ll give you the how-to first so at least you feel like you’ve got something to start with!

When making miso soup it is important to remember not to boil the soup – the idea is just to keep it just under boiling point. This is because the beneficial bacteria that is in the miso – koji (Aspergillus oryzae) – is a living organism that is very good for your digestion and will be killed off if you boil the soup. Also, the konbu seaweed you use will produce an interesting chemical effect in your body when it mixes with the miso and this delicacy will also be destroyed if you boil the soup. More about this later… let’s make the soup!

Dashi stock:

1 litre cold water

15cm piece konbu seaweed

3 dried shiitake mushrooms

Miso soup:

2 heaped tablespoons miso

3-4 spring onions finely sliced

½ block of silk tofu cut into small cubes

1 or 2 teaspoons of dried wakame seaweed

First, let’s make the dashi stock. This is a stock that is used a great deal in Zen cuisine for many dishes. Usually, “dashi” is a combination of konbu seaweed with dried bonito fish, but shiitake mushrooms replace the fish in vegetarian cooking. You can always make extra dashi stock and just put the remainder in the freezer for later use. Shiitake mushrooms can be easily purchased at Asian food stores - they are also used a lot in Chinese cooking so they might be called just “dried Chinese mushrooms”.

Put cold water into a saucepan. Wash the shiitake mushrooms and then add them to the water. Using scissors, cut several snips about two-thirds across down the length of the konbu, or else cut the konbu into several pieces. Don’t wash the konbu – the white powdery substance on the seaweed is essential minerals. Gently heat the water keeping an eye on it so it doesn’t boil. When it’s just about boiling, turn it off and leave the konbu and mushrooms to soak for at least 15 minutes – the longer the better.

Strain out the konbu and mushrooms. You can chop up the mushrooms and put them back into the soup at the end, or you can use them in something else (great in stir-fry) or discard them for compost. Although the konbu won’t be now added to the soup, it can be used for another dish but is better off in the compost because this kelp adds really good nutrients to compost in the form of beneficial minerals.

Now we’ll prepare the miso paste. Because miso is the texture of peanut butter it is not so easy to just spoon into the stock to dissolve. In fact, the miso doesn’t actually dissolve at all, as you will notice if you leave the soup in the bowl for a while – the miso will sink to the bottom of the bowl but be easily integrated again by gentle stirring. Put a little stock in a jug or bowl. Take a spoonful of miso and using the back of another spoon mash the miso gradually off the spoon into the stock. In Japan they use a really nifty device that looks like a large tea-strainer with a spoon or wooden paddle that makes it a breeze to mash the miso directly into the saucepan.

After dissolving the miso, pour the miso and stock back into the saucepan and return it to the stove. Preventing the soup from boiling, add the chopped spring onions, then the tofu and wakame. Wakame is a kind of seaweed with a very mild flavour that is full of nutritious minerals. I’ll talk a bit more about this in the coming blog.

You can actually add the wakame and tofu directly to the serving bowl and just pour the miso soup over the top. The wakame looks like dried tea-leaves but expands dramatically when wet – so don’t be deceived by looks and think there’s not enough seaweed in the bowl. I say this because I learned the hard way. In the temple where I learned Zen cuisine, the wakame had been added to the bowls beforehand and now I was to pour the miso soup into the bowls and immediately serve it to six guests awaiting their dinner. I thought that the amount of wakame looked a bit slight so just scooped some more leaves out of the container into the bowls and then poured the hot soup over the top. Well, by the time I had carried the tray of hot soup into the waiting guests and placed it before them, there was seaweed flowing over the edges of the bowl like little monsters of the deep trying to get out! So remember – less is more!

This recipe is for a very basic miso soup and it lends itself now to be made into a more substantial meal by adding ingredients. More about this later…

Until then… ENJOY!