Miso Soup - Miso Shiru

I've finally got most of my backlogged posts published. Which considering the last two months was no easy feat. I never mentioned it before, but I was out of the country during the last two weeks of January and traveled back home to Perth to be with my extended family during Chinese New Year. Then I ended up scheduled to work every weekend since I was back in Sydney until now. I actually got most of my posts finished up last weekend, when I was working onsite. I had to wait for the other teams to finish before I had to do my part. That wait took 5 hours. Most data centers are like a large and very noisy walk-in refrigerator. This one was one of those. All I could think of while waiting (and typing up my posts), was that I wish I had a nice hot bowl of miso soup with me.

In that environment, I don't think there could be anything that could be as soul satisfying than sitting there with my hands cupped around a hot bowl of miso soup, sipping away, savouring each mouthful.

And you guessed it, as soon as my part was done, I got home, boiled some water, added some dashi granules, miso paste and some other ingredients found in my pantry and fridge and 10 mins later... ta-daaa.. Miso Soup...!

Miso is a great base for a seafood based soup too. Whenever I do have enough seafood bits and pieces on hand (and the spare time), I make a Fisherman's Soup with the off cuts of seafood (eg. Fish head, Mussels, salmon, prawn) with miso. But this time, it was just a simple miso soup with some Enoki mushrooms thrown in... And boy did it hit the spot. :)

Miso Soup - Miso Shiru

normally serves 2, or 1 in this case (if you want seconds)

• 1 teaspoon Dashi granules
• 3 cups water
• 2 tablespoons White miso paste *
• 1/2 tablespoon Mirin
• 1 piece package Silken tofu (diced into cubes - 1 piece is about 75g)
• 1 tablespoon Wakame seaweed
• 70g Enoki Mushroom (washed, brown roots removed) - Optional

* you may need to adjust this depending on the type of miso used

Method:

1. In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, add in the dashi granules to the water and bring to a boil.
2. Reduce heat to medium, pour in the mirin and whisk in the miso paste.
3. Add in the Enoki mushrooms and seaweed.
4. Stir in the tofu cubes.
5. Simmer gently for 2 to 3 minutes before serving.