Rustic Miso Soup With Tofu and Seaweed
- Yield:Serves 4
- Active time:25 minutes
- Total time:25 minutes
This recipe appears in:
Plumbing the Depths of Miso Soup[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]
Bolder than your average miso soup, this version, inspired by one made at the Brooklyn restaurant Ganso Yaki, achieves its rich flavor with a robust dashi and blend of both dark and mild miso. Consider using hatcho miso for the dark one—it's a dense, heartier style made strictly with soybeans (as opposed to both rice and soybeans).
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon (3g) dried wakame seaweed
- 1/2 ounce dried kombu (14g; about one 6- by 5-inch piece), rinsed in cold water
- Cold water
- 1/2 ounce katsuobushi (dried bonito shavings) (14g; about 2 1/2 cups)
- About 1/3 cake (160g) silken tofu, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- 1 tablespoon (16g) mild miso, such as shiro (white) miso (see note above)
- 2 tablespoons (32g) dark miso, such as hatcho or aka (red) miso (see note above)
- 1 scallion, white and light green parts only, sliced thinly on the bias
Directions
-
1.
In a small bowl, cover wakame with enough cold water to cover and let stand at room temperature until soft, about 15 minutes.
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2.
Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, combine kombu with 3 1/2 cups (830ml) cold water and cook over medium heat until water just starts to boil, about 6 minutes. Remove kombu with tongs and discard or reserve for another use. (Kombu can be cut into thin slivers and tossed into a salad.)
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3.
Add a few tablespoons cold water to saucepan to lower temperature, then add katsuobushi and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat and simmer dashi for 7 minutes.
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4.
Strain dashi through a fine-mesh strainer set over a heatproof bowl; discard katsuobushi. Return dashi to a clean saucepan. Drain wakame and add to dashi along with tofu; be very gentle, since tofu is fragile and will break easily. Set over medium heat until warmed through.
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5.
In a small bowl, whisk both misos with just enough warm dashi to dissolve into a thin paste. Remove dashi from heat and very gently stir in miso paste, being careful not to break the tofu.
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6.
Carefully ladle soup into warmed bowls, garnish with scallions, and serve immediately.