Dinner Tonight: Miso Soup with Grilled Eggplant and Mushrooms
A few weeks ago I finally figured out the secret to good miso soup. You can buy miso paste and all the tofu you can stomach, but to get it right you need dashi. I was so amazed by what I could do with dashi that I made miso soup four or five times in the ensuing days. Subsequently, by the end of my miso soup binge, I got rather tired of the standard recipe made with tofu and scallion. I loved the taste of the soup, but what else could I add?
Luckily, there are many sites dedicated to the subject (The Japanese Food Report, for instance, has a post that lists 54 variations of the soup). I specifically wanted to use the eggplants and mushrooms I had on hand, and that's when I came across this recipe for grilled eggplant and mushroom miso soup by Maki Itoh from Just Hungry. She grills the vegetables before tossing them in the broth. Interestingly, the vegetables are grilled without a single drop of oil! She says you can taste the vegetables better when they're cooked this way, and considering how delicious they were, she may be right.
Dashi is probably the big stumbling block here. To make it from scratch you'll need some bonito flakes and dried kelp. I have my own method, and Itoh has her own. The Japanese Food Report has an excellent tutorial, as do we on Serious Eats. If this is all too much, you can also buy instant dashi, but I've never used it before.
Other than making dashi, this recipe couldn't be much simpler—or healthier for that matter. I felt a little too healthy after eating this and ended up needing a snack later on in the night.
About the author: Nick Kindelsperger is a freelance writer in Chicago and the co-founder of The Paupered Chef.
Miso Soup with Grilled Eggplant and Mushrooms
- serves 2-3 -
Ingredients
4 cups dashi stock
1 Japanese eggplant, or 1/2 regular eggplant, sliced into 1/2 inch thick pieces
5 cremini mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup shiromiso
2 scallions, chopped
Procedure
1. Pour the dashi into a pot. Turn the heat to medium, and carefully bring to a simmer. Don't let it boil.
2. Place a grill pan over medium high heat. Place the eggplant and mushroom slices on the grill and cook until they start develop grill lines on the bottom. Flip, and cook again until they develop grill lines. If you don't use a grill pan, then just cook in a skillet until tender. Otherwise, a broiler would work well, too. Transfer the vegetables to the pot with the dashi.
3. Simmer the vegetables in the dashi for about 10 minutes, or until the eggplant is tender.
4. Turn off the heat, and stir in the miso and the scallions. Ladle into bowls and serve.
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5 Comments:
grilling eggplant beforehand is a nice idea!
I think for traditional miso soup, iriko (aka niboshi; dried small fish) dashi is the standard because miso soup is an everyday cheap soup.
The bonito flakes & kelp combo is normally used for more sophisticated soups like osumashi (clear soup).
I'm probably not entitled to say this since I grew up on dashi packet- miso soups and I use the powder stuff. shame.
hmw0029 at 12:30AM on 05/21/09
i love the idea to grill the vegetables beforehand. i've also never used eggplant in miso but love it in all forms so i'm sure this is great too. definitely using it next time around.
my favorite storebought miso paste is made by South River. Most recently I made the soup then dropped in a few wontons. Mouthful of wonton infused with miso is yum. Of course, no dashi in my house :)
nithya at hungrydesi at 10:46AM on 05/21/09
I looove your idea of adding roasted vegetables!
Did you get the Dashi without msg in it?
Ambitous at 2:26PM on 05/21/09
Sounds good! I am addicted to making miso with shrimp stock. I buy cheap, fresh shrimp from the Asian grocers in Queens and boil them with old bay seasoning. Then I throw their shells back in the water they boiled in, reduce it, throw in the miso paste, some of the cooked shrimp, rice noodles, spinach, and maybe some sesame oil. I have had this for a few of my lunches this week.
fressagirl at 2:37PM on 05/21/09
Dashi is the base for anything.....it even adds the "unknown" to a good pasta sauce. Buy the one pound box and enjoy.
Fred Rickson at 10:41AM on 05/28/09