A Cookbook of Irreproducible Results - A Miso Soup-ish

    Welcome to the first installment of A Cookbook of Irreproducible Results - a series of recipes that rely on my specific ingredients, kitchen, and attentions. They are probably impossible to recreate, even by me, but that doesn't mean your specific ingredients, kitchen, and attentions, can't make a comparable or superior dish. They probably should, all things considered.

    The unlisted first step in all of these recipes is: i.) do the dishes as you go - literally every recipe has one or two or five minutes here and there where you don't have to do anything. If you aren't doing anything, you could be doing the dishes. Regardless of how well this recipe turns out, you will be happier at the end if the dishes are done. Just do the dishes.

A Miso Soup-ish

    Miso soup traditionally begins with dashi, which is a Japanese broth made from dried kelp and bonito flakes (smoked/fermented/dried skipjack tuna), but I don't have either of those, have been a vegetarian for 25 years, and am not trying to imitate a traditional miso soup. So, generalizing a bit, the first and maybe most important part is that you want a flavorful broth. It'd ideally be clear and not include any particles but that's on you. For mine, this time around, I'm using garlic, dried chilis, dried mushrooms, a chunk of ginger, and onion thinnings from plants I've started for spring. Cover them with very hot water and let steep for at least 15 minutes, but probably more like two hours because you took a nap and forgot you were cooking, and then panic-simmer for 15 more minutes.

dried and fresh ingredients for the broth

    While the broth is simmering, prep the rest of your ingredients. For this particular go around I'm using bok choy because I have entirely too much of it, but you could include whatever you want. Miso soup is, "stuff in broth with miso paste," and the traditional version is excellent as is, but if you need to vamp, then vamp. I'm a vegetable gardener that brings home considerably more than he can eat any given week so vegetable dumps like miso soup are a pretty nice place to reduce my waste. Just remember that the formula of stuff + broth + miso paste is pretty focused on the "miso" part, so nothing too heavily flavored like sausage or curry powder. You can put those in, it's your soup, but this recipe already teeters near the edge of miso soup and some of your more powerful ingredients are more like a dead sprint off a cliff (in this tortured construction the dead sprint off a cliff causes you to land in a different, but perhaps equally tasty, soup).

steeping is delicious waiting

    The next thing you need to do is drain those ingredients away while reserving the broth. You could reserve, blend, and incorporate those ingredients for a creamier, though decidedly not miso soup, if you would like. You can also save and chop those ingredients and in this particular version I saved everything except the chunk of ginger. For a little more texture, chop and then sauté the ingredients you've already simmered- especially the mushrooms. It can add a bit of chewiness to the soup. Don't do this if you're prepping the kind of soup you'd suck down in 30 seconds before piling wasabi and pickled ginger on a California roll. "Miso Soup" is smooth and salty and refreshes your palate. Miso soup-ish could be that, but this version bulks it up a little so it's more like a main than a side.

choppables

    To finish, take approximately 1/4 cup miso paste per quart of your proposed soup and mix it in a bowl with a similar amount of the broth until smooth. If you add the miso paste directly to the soup it could clump up. Add that miso slurry to the main broth and stir to combine. Keep it on heat for a minute or so but no longer than that. Boiling the miso could be bad for reasons you can look up elsewhere. For the purposes of this recipe all you need to know is that it's unnecessary.

    If you have any late additions, like bean sprouts, scallions, a runny egg, or whatever, go for it. See if I care.

    Broken down into steps, miso soup essentially has three, which are as follows:

1. Prepare broth
2. Add stuff
3. Add miso paste

(Chris Farley voice) ♫big soup on a tiny stove♫

    I guess "eat" could be a fourth, but the important thing is that making soup, especially miso soup, is not very hard and could involve pretty much anything you already have on hand. If you want it to be "Miso Soup" then you definitely need miso paste and also could adhere closer to a traditional recipe, but if you're good with miso soup-ish, then you can start right now. 

Ingredients

For broth (for a more traditional broth see just about any other recipe):

    dried mushrooms and peppers

    garlic

    onion thinnings (scallions)

    ginger chunk (unpeeled because to hell with peeling ginger)

    

For simmer:

    bok choy - chopped

    reserved mushrooms, peppers, and garlic from the broth - chopped

For finishing:

    miso paste - stirred with equal part broth until smooth

miso paste slurry

    Directions, such as they are

1) Prepare Broth: Add dried mushrooms, dried peppers, garlic, a chunk of ginger, and some onion to very hot water and let steep for 15-120 minutes depending on how long you napped during this step. Just make sure everything rehydrates.

2) Strain out solids and set aside - chopping some and saving others to use as whole toppings or compost.

3) Chop some vegetables or whatever for the simmer - continue simmering in broth until done.

4) Combine some miso paste with hot broth in a separate bowl and whisk until combined, add to main pot with the heat off and stir some more, warm for a little bit but don't let the miso boil

5) Put this stuff in a bowl and start slurping

oh, god, those chilis were hot

updated 2.16.21