Japanese cuisine
Miso soup
味噌汁
A soup of dashi and miso that takes ten minutes. Miso must never boil: boiling takes out both the aroma and the point of it.
- Prep
- 5 min
- Cook
- 15 min
- Total
- 20 min
- Difficulty
- Easy
Ingredients
- Water800 ml
- Kombu — wiped, not washed10 g
- Bonito flakes15 g
- Miso paste4 tbsp
- Tofu — cubed200 g
- Dried wakame1 tbsp
- Spring onion2
Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.
Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.
Method
- 1
Cover the kombu with cold water and set it over low heat. Bring it to the edge of a boil over about ten minutes and lift the seaweed out before bubbles appear.
10 min
- 2
Bring the water to the boil, add the bonito flakes, take it off the heat at once and let it stand for two minutes until the flakes sink.
3 min
- 3
Strain the stock through a sieve without pressing the flakes — pressed flakes turn it bitter.
2 min
- 4
Soak the wakame in cold water for five minutes; it swells several times over.
5 min
- 5
Warm the dashi, add the tofu and the wakame and hold it at a low heat for a couple of minutes.
3 min
- 6
Whisk the miso smooth in a ladle of the hot stock, stir it back in and take the pan off the heat immediately. Scatter over the spring onion.
2 min
About the dish
Miso soup is two ingredients and one rule. Dashi takes ten minutes from kombu and bonito flakes, and the miso is whisked into hot but not boiling stock and taken straight off the heat. Boiling kills the enzymes and turns a delicate savoury taste into flat saltiness.
Kombu must not boil either: at a boil the seaweed gives up slime and bitterness. It comes out just before the water reaches the boil.
Worth knowing
- — White miso is milder and sweeter, red is saltier and sharper. White is the easier place to start.
- — You can reheat the soup, but never to a boil, or the flavour goes for good.
Nutrition
Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.
- Calories
- 110 kcal
- Protein
- 9 g
- Fat
- 4 g
- Carbs
- 8 g