I am starting to fall in love with Asian/Japanese cuisine!
Thanks to Alicia Silverstone and her book The Kind Diet, I no longer think that Asian cuisine revolves around low quality meats and high sodium and sugar- although fast food Asian food will definitely confirm that suspicion, and that tends to be true no matter what the cuisine may be!
In our opinion, this was an absolutely perfect meal- satisfying and filling, but not heavy in the slightest.
David has been asking me to make miso soup for awhile, but I was hesitant because I thought it would be difficult. Truth is, it couldn't be easier! Once you have the ingredients, of course. Target sells nori, which is dried seaweed- also a super healthy food, but no miso. James and I visited our local health food store and a very helpful employee guided me to the miso and recommended red miso for use in soups.
Miso is fermented soy beans and is used as the base flavor in miso soups. There is red miso, barley miso (from fermented barley) and white miso. We also bought our udon noodles there as well! Together, the miso and nori cost about $15 but we used about 1/3 of the miso and only 1/10 of the nori, so it is well worth the initial costs.
Did you know that miso is amazing for your body? Read more here and here.
I think next time I will try blending the silken tofu to make the soup creamy instead of chunky and David suggested we add mushrooms.
Ingredients:
1 pkg Nasoya silken tofu, cut into 1 inch cubes
8 cups water
6 scallions, green part only, chopped
1/2 cup red miso
1 sheet shredded nori
1 tsp sesame oil
2 dashes soy sauce
1 box Udon noodles, cooked and drained
Bring water to a slow simmer and add the seaweed. Simmer for 6 minutes. Reduce heat to low and add the remaining ingredients. Stir until miso is dissolved. Enjoy!
We buy our veg sushi at Target, where a sweet Asian lady named Gloria makes it fresh for us each time. We usually get one of each and share them, though I am going to attempt making my own with the rest of the nori!
I think one of my favorite things about becoming a vegetarian has been the amount of fun we have had exploring veg friendly food from different cultures.
American cuisine is so unromantic and predictably meat based- hot dogs, hamburgers and steak. No wonder heart disease is the number one killer in the US!
David and I enjoyed working to make this soup together and had fun creating a new dish that we knew was absolutely nourishing for our bodies- that is the difference between eating to survive and eating to thrive!
It can be tough to be vegetarian and eat Japanese food - so much of it has fish in it. Your recipe sounds delicious, but if you don't mind fish I wanted to recommend that you try using dashi as a base.
ReplyDeleteDashi is the all purpose stock in Japan. It's easy to make - just soak some kombu seaweed in water, then boil it with bonito fish-flakes for a few minutes. The stock you get from that really adds depth to anything you use it in, especially miso soup.
Of course, you can find the same thing powdered, but the real thing is the best.
At any rate, I love miso soup deeply, so it's always great seeing people get into making it!
Nigel, thank you for the info!
ReplyDeleteI've heard of dashi- and was disappointed to find out that there are no quality fish free alternatives- but I suppose considering that fish is a signature ingredient in Japanese food, it would be silly to try to recreate a dish with a substitute and expect the SAME results.
Those darn fish make everything so flavorful- I might need to become a pescetarian. :)
Your blog looks fantastic. I'll be visiting again!
Hi Paris,
ReplyDeleteThank you! I'm glad you liked my blog. Feel free to ask any Japanese cooking/food questions.
After I commented on Bless My Nest, I got to thinking, there *must* be a way to somehow make vegetarian dashi. I did a little looking and it seems that you can make a good dashi with kombu and shiitake mushrooms - or even just with kombu on its own. Which makes sense now that I think of it. Here's a link with more detail:
http://www.justhungry.com/vegetarian-dashi-japanese-stock
I'll stick with the standard recipe, but if you try this one, please let me know what you think!